These numbers are made up - specifically, they’re made up by the stock market. If you actually think Elon Musk has $273 billion dollars, I have some Saudi shares in Twitter to sell you.
Cool if their stock is worth that much they can get rid of it and make the company more public instead having so much power in the hands of the few
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Oh so he only has two billion? Well, we’re basically equals then. I wonder how he takes his avocado toast…
I’m not saying that Elon Musk deserves his wealth, I’m saying the premise of the meme is nonsense.
Nah. …Well, don’t get me wrong, the rich absolutely should be taxed, sure, but that’s a different debate.
We don’t have a nationally mandated minimum wage in Finland. Because the unions set their own minimum wages (which they adjust frequently to market conditions) and the unions also have actual legitimate power.
Maybe they should try this stuff in America too. It’s fucking awesome.
Americans have been convinced that is socialism and therefore the greatest evil.
Make them pay people more.
Obviously, those people worked for their money. All the teenagers with minimum wage did was have a job, like some sort of peasant.
And yet most forums will ban you even say the word “guillotine”.
If there’s a minimum wage, there should also be a maximum wage, but I may be a communist, idk.
Maximum wage used to be a thing. It’s how we got insurance tied to employment.
Imo, nothing about what you just said is communist in nature, as we are defining terms for a continued labor market.
The people in the meme aren’t getting their wealth from their wages
Which is why this policy usually goes by maximum income or income cap
Individual’s wealth vs minimum wage is not a great comparison. It’s showing accumulated wealth of an individual who will over time receive pay raises and build up their wealth.
Minimum wage is what it says the minimum. It’s supposed to be entry level income at the time. It should be adjusted for inflation.
To make it more accurate, it should show income increase for ech of the billionaires, and compare it to an income of some median individuals.
I tried do to just that, because i believed that it wouldn’t paint a better picture for the billionaires, and I also dont like that people have downvoted your comment without providing explanation.
Assuming Musk started working at 18yrs old, which would have been in 1989, 35 years ago. And assuming he started at 7.25 dollars an hour, and never got a raise, he would have accumulated roughly 527.800 dollars by now.
40h * 52w * 7.25 usd = 15080 usd 15080 usd * 35y = 527 800 usd
His net worth (according to meme) is a staggering 273 000 000 000 dollars. Obviously he had to have a pay rise to get there, lets calculate that rise, starting from 7.25 dollars an hour.
273000000000 ÷ 527800 = 517241.37931034
So his pay rise averaged over 35 years, would be an absurd 517240%, or 14778% per year. The yearly average pay rise is roughly 4-5%, its not even remotly close.
All of this assumes that Elon started with 0 dollars to his name, he didn’t. So in reality his hypothetical pay rise wouldve been a a bit lower. However the minimum wage wasn’t 7.25 dollars in 1989, and I haven’t accounted for inflation. Still the numbers would probably be similarly insane.
Even in a somewhat more accurate form, I think the core statement of the meme still rings true.
That’s not how exponential growth works. The pay increase would be in the ballpark of 50% per year for that amount of gain in 35 years.
And remember, wealth accumulates in passive investments, so even if you made $7.25/hr for 35 years, you’d have over $1m if you didn’t spend any of it and it accumulated at over ~3% per year.
Oh, you’re right. Although 50% per year is still insane.
And I definitely forgot about investing, but also didn’t account for inflation, which maybe would cancel e/o out.
Doesn’t really matter if you consider the difference between a million and a billion is roughly a billion.
Not the most fair comparison. Compare it to the richest people in 2012, as extreme wealth ebbs and flows with inflated “funny money” stocks.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WFRBLT01026
Edit: also remember the unit on the left side is 1,000,000.
So 10,000,000 is 10 trillion dollars.
So that would show ~5 trillion dollars in net worth to 45+ trillion from 1990 to now.
So they have made 900% increases over 35 years. Note inflation would have been 241% during those years.
Instead of being rich for life and never needing money for anything, now they are rich for life and never need money for anything times 3.73.
Instead of that money going to the people starving while working their ass off.
This is a better comparison than the post itself, and we should also be putting the minimum wage on the graph to compare the gains.
eat the rich, they taste like pork
I doubt they taste that good, but I guess we would need to try to know for sure.
I’m sure it depends on seasoning…
If you see these numbers and still think tax is the solution, you’re not paying enough attention.
A system is what it does. Our system created this disparity, and will continue to allow it to grow as long as it exists. Any solutions within the acceptable limits said system has set out will never stop it, only placate the masses enough to stop us from tearing it down.
You don’t have to go that far back to find a time when the rich were heavily taxed and income disparity was much smaller. Keep going back and you can find other times when the disparity was greater and the rich were taxed less.
The best outcome may require the system to be torn down, but it’s clearly also possible to tax the rich significantly more even with the system already in place.
Exactly. Post WWII the tax on the richest was 90%, it stayed there until the mid 60s when it was lowered to 70% and then in the early 80s Reagan and that congress lowered it to 50%, then briefly to even below 30%.
It probably wouldn’t have happened without the combined effect of the Great Depression rolling directly into WWII. With those two events, it was possible to raise taxes that high, and the rich actually (to a large extent) paid them.
Even though the “Again” part of MAGA is very ill-defined, I think a lot of MAGA supporters would point to the post WWII era as a time that America was great. A greater shared prosperity was probably a significant reason why things felt so great then. Unions were strong, rich people were heavily taxed, and everyone was better off.
For varying definitions of “everyone”…
I don’t think there was anybody in the 1950s who was much worse off than they were in the 1930s. Yes, it took a while for women, non-whites, non-straights, etc. to get their full rights. But, even with fewer rights than a married white christian man, things were improving for them too. But, obviously, there’s a reason that the MAGA theme resonates much more with old straight white men than it does with anybody else.
Lmfao, looking back longingly at feudalism (with a stop over in the cold war era? Because that was such a prosperous time for so many in society /s) I’m guessing isn’t making the point you think it is. You’re literally arguing in favour of maintaining a disparity. The size of isn’t the point, it’s existence in the first place is.
Maybe have a think with yourself about why you’re so attached to the idea of there being a rich and ruling class at all, whose graces and willingness to pay back a tiny percentage of the money they extracted by exploitation society should depend on…
What the hell are you talking about? We’re talking about increasing taxes for the ultra-rich. Saying ultra-wealth people should be paying >90% tax has nothing to do with feudalism, and it certainly isn’t supporting the concept of a rich and ruling class.
All I’m saying is that taxing the rich is good and necessary for as long as they exist. Sure, our current system is a disparity engine, but it’s not impossible for us to dilute the effects of it with progressive tax policies, as has been done in years past.
Personally I don’t see it as a choice of either tax the rich or abolish capitalism. I see the two goals as mutually connected to liberation and progress: tax the rich until we can replace the system with a better one.
Building coalitions around progressive policies within the current system can help shift more people into alignment with post-capitalist thinking. Fomenting divisions between socialists and progressives does the opposite; solidarity forever.
and it certainly isn’t supporting the concept of a rich and ruling class.
It certainly is. There shouldn’t be any people who have that much more than everyone else that a tax bracket that high should even exist. To get to that point you have had to be exploiting others, and allowing them to continue to exploit society and have vastly more power than anyone else, as long as they pay back some (even 90%, that still leaves the likes of Musk and Bezos billionaires) is still maintaining the status quo, no matter how socialist it makes you feel (90% tax isn’t socialism, workers owning the means of production is, which leaves no room for such disparity). So feel free to ask yourself that same question I asked above.
E: as for feudalism, that’s all capitalism is - feudalism with extra steps. You having been indoctrinated to believe there needs to be a ruling class doesn’t mean that’s true.
I agree that there shouldn’t be any people with that wealth, and so does the person you were responding to. But taking away 90% of people’s money above a reasonable threshold is definitely not going to help those people become ultra rich. It would make becoming ultra rich more difficult, and instead spread the wealth across the wider population - decreasing wealth disparity.
And although there is almost certainly a better way possible, this method is relatively easy to implement and is an obvious improvement over our current situation. So we can just go ahead and do it while we continue to find consensus on a better system in the long run.
You seem to be arguing that taxing the rich is somehow bad because it isn’t perfect. Your argument makes no sense. You are saying that taking their money helps them maintain a position of wealth. That makes no sense. Of course taking their money will make them less rich. Surely that’s easy to understand.
Please explain what you’re proposing. Are you saying to get rid of democracy or what?
How about we tax the rich so there are no billionaires, take the corporations out of housing and rentals and fix our gerrymandering? These would go a long way to fix the problems.
It seems to me that they’re hinting at abolishing capitalism.
One way to do that would be to
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Mandate worker coop structure on all businesses
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Institute a 100% land value tax
Taxing the rich doesn’t really solve the root of the problem. Abolishing capitalism pre-distributes wealth so that people don’t become billionaires in the first place. 100% land value tax encourages efficient use of land.
Has that ever worked?
Abolishing capitalism pre-distributes wealth so that people don’t become billionaires in the first place. 100% land value tax encourages efficient use of
This part. Having employee owned corporations doesn’t abolish capitalism completely. Although, I agree that it would be awesome.
There has never been a worker-cooperative-dominated market economy, but actually existing worker coops and employee-owned corporations don’t seem to create billionaires, and have more equitable distribution of wages.
Why does mandating all firms to be worker coops not abolish capitalism in your view?
I would suggest looking into what capitalism is before we have that conversation.
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Can you please explain your line of thinking here? This person purpose more drastic measures than just taxing, and you jump on them being against democracy. How is democracy = some people being ultra rich?
Like, for me, democracy means people decide how the society is ruled, so Im excited to hear how changing the system to get rid of disparity is the same as abolishing democracy
What do you think that poster is proposing?
Why does that matter? I was asking you to explain your line of thinking, and you’re not even trying to answer my question Abolishing the rich is not an attack on democracy, som id like to hear your way of thinking here
Not sure if you’re pretending to be OP or you’re actually OP. Either way, this one is toast in this community.
Why does that matter? I was asking you to explain your line of thinking, and you’re not even trying to answer my question Abolishing the rich is not an attack on democracy, som id like to hear your way of thinking here
Edit: It was a temp ban anyway, don’t worry too much about it.
Look around, there’s States with a somewhat working mix of capital and social. Take that as a minimum, while some of them already talk about universal basic income.
Some historical presidents and judges literally sold you out. That’s not democracy, you’re a plutocracy.
Do you think that poster is specifically proposing these things? He’s talking about getting rid of the system.
Edit: Go deeper into the thread.
Honestly, i don’t see how you can fix it without starting anew.
It’s not really a great idea to troll the mod.
Better yet, end all taxes on individuals. Instead, all taxes should be levied against corporations, and they should cover the entire bill for a functioning society… And society should democratically decide what that entails. Tax the corporations so much that their stock prices fall back to realistic numbers. Then we won’t have any of these fake billionaires who’s “wealth is tied up in stocks”, but also they can get loans against them. It should be very easy to get “rich” by working yourself, it should be very hard to get rich “letting your money work for you”
Ok, so every American company becomes the subsidiary of a company registered in Bermuda or Ireland. They report no profits from their American subsidiaries, so they pay no taxes.
Corporations don’t have to “live” anywhere, so they don’t have anything to lose by ceasing to exist in high tax areas and “moving” to low tax ones. It’s why companies based in Kansas City switch back and forth from being Kansas-based or Missouri-based, whatever’s convenient for their taxes.
If they want to sell their shit in the US they have to allow us to audit them everywhere
So, they don’t sell their shit in the US. Problem solved.
Someone will fill their shoes… That’s the beauty of the free market
Let me guess, you’re an American who has never lived outside the US?
That’s correct
Maybe a hot take, but I actually think individual progressive taxes are great. Have a generous tax free threshold, but individual taxes stops excessive wealth hoarding and (in the case of inheritance tax) dynasties
It’s just an extra step… Everyone gets a paycheck from a corporation of some kind… Instead of hundreds of millions to deal with, the IRS could just focus on the companies
I agree, and on inheritance anything over like $1m should be taxed heavily. Anything over say $10m or so should be taxed at or near 100%.
Inheritance tax is very good and fair. But a tricky problem is that if one place has a big inheritance tax, and another place doesn’t - then rich people basically just put all their money in the place with no inheritance tax. … We should do it anyway, but it does mean the bulk of that money probably won’t get taxed.
Yeah, the race to the bottom is always an issue. It should still be done, but it needs to be considered.
A tax on the amount of CO2 released per person, both directly and indirectly?
Good, but hard to measure fairly. Essentially all the emissions for everyone are ‘indirect’. They are the result of the processes used to produce the goods we consume, etc. So then, should the consumer be responsible for those emissions directly, or should it be the factory workers, or the people who own the factory, or the people who supplied the fuel that was used to run the factory, or the people who payed the people who supplied the fuel… etc.
We could think about untangling it, but probably easier to just tax the rich and then tackle the CO2 problem separately - probably by also taxing the people who own the factory for emissions.
The tax will burden the end consumer the most - perhaps that’s what’s need to end especially polluting buying habits: charge the true cost.
I am not a tax expert (IANATE?), but with all the tax havens and multi-national businesses would they not just relocate? I am very much interested in the simplification of the tax code such that the burden shifts back to those keen on wealth extraction. I just dunno what that looks like as code and in impementation.
If they want to sell their shit in the US they have to let us audit them everywhere and tax accordingly
Sure, they can relocate. But you could structure the law so that you can’t sell anything then. Apple is free to leave the US and not pay taxes, but then they are not allowed to sell anything in the US, have any offices in the US or hire anyone in the US. Of course such a law would never happen. But it’s absolutely possible in theory.
But you could structure the law so that you can’t sell anything then.
So, why would they sell anything? What incentive does a corporation have to do business in a region where taxes are punishing? Why not just focus their efforts in Europe, South America and Asia?
It would be like Cuba. If you want a car, you can buy one… but it’s going to be a Franken-car built from the parts scrounged together from the last time there were car companies operating in the country.
The incentive is to make a profit. It would just be enormous profit instead of an unimaginable one.
Plenty of companies concentrate their efforts in places that are the most profitable and ignore areas that are less profitable.
Just look at how many companies are only available in the US and not available in Europe, Asia, even Canada. Sure, they might get around to the US eventually, but it would be lowest priority since it’s the least profitable territory.
Being a huge market is still a major factor. A company would still prefer to do business in a 300M population English speaking country with a 10% profit margin, than a 10M population country with a 30% profit margin. But you are correct, companies that don’t want to pay taxes would leave. I say good riddance.
Right now, a lot of companies start in the US because the US is the best place to start. 330 million people, one language, good profits, etc. But, a punishing tax might mean that the profit margin is much less than 10%. 10% is a huge profit margin for most businesses, so it might drop from say 5% to 1%. At that point, Europe looks a lot more promising as a place to start. 450 million people, for the most part it’s one regulatory zone, you do have to have things in multiple languages, so that’s a bit difficult.
Then, after Europe there’s east Asia: Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan. Then slightly poorer countries like Indonesia and India. Maybe South America next.
The US would be near the bottom of the list if it was the only country with a punishing tax rate.
They’d still be profitable… At the end of the day the workers create the wealth. All we’d be doing is putting that wealth towards what we collectively agree on before anyone can take it as profit. But, there’d still be profit left over.
They’d still be profitable, but less profitable, so they’d be lowest priority.
If you’re American, you may not realize this, but there are a lot of products and services that are only available in the USA because that’s the most profitable place for them. The companies have plans to eventually expand to Canada, and then maybe Europe, but the focus is now on the US because that’s where the profit is.
If the US had extremely high taxes for those companies, they’d focus elsewhere. Sure, eventually they’d get around to the US once they saturated the European, Asian, Canadian, Mexican, South American and African markets, but it would never be a priority. And, for a lot of companies, “getting around to serving the US market” just wouldn’t happen.
Well I’d hope those other places would follow suit. But also, the free market would still allow others to fill the shoes of the companies that left. And whether a company pays a worker who then pays taxes, or whether we cut out the middleman and the company just pays the taxes directly, it’s the same amount leaving the company. But also, if corporations actually had to pay taxes maybe they’d start pushing on each other to stop gouging the government.
But also, the free market would still allow others to fill the shoes of the companies that left.
The Free Market would also allow them to set up their business in Europe and go for that market instead. And, since they make a much bigger profit in Europe than in the US, that would be their focus. The only companies that would set up in the US are the ones that are not able to make the bigger profits available in Europe.
This is basically like the car market in the USSR after WWII. The major American, European and Japanese automakers didn’t operate there, but of course that didn’t mean there weren’t any cars. It just meant that there weren’t any good cars.
They got nation-states by the balls. They’ll never let you tax them. At most there will be some concession made that just makes them look like they did something, how the ultra rich always do. Unfortunately liberal pacifism isn’t nearly enough.
Minimum wage shouldn’t ever be a specific amount, it should be a percentage tied to some other economic metric, so that as inflation or cost of living rises, wages increase with it as well. This BS of having to wait for out-of-touch millionaire Congress members to approve of minimum wage increases is ridiculous.
How about we just make minimum wage a percentage of the highest income in the country? Take whoever made the most money in a given year, divide that by 52 weeks, and then divide that by 40 hours. Then divide whatever the result of that is by 1000. This should be very reasonable basis. It still allows for a huge wealth gap, but asserts that nobody should make over 1000 times more than anyone else. You still get rich and poor people, so this is in no way a leftist policy. It’s a very moderate middle of the road one.
Anyway, looking at 2023. Not even examining his true income and how much he blew doing who knows what, Elon Musk had $95.4 billion net gain in wealth that year. Divide that by 52 weeks, 40 hours, and 1000 - we should make minimum wage $45865.38 per hour. And if that’s not reasonable or feasible, it just means he makes too much for the good of the economy.
Meanwhile, Congress has raised their own pay multiple times since they raised the minimum wage back in 2009.
Actually, looking into it, it seems that they gave themselves an automatic annual pay raise back in the ethics reforms act of 1989! Fucking assholes.
https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/97-615.html
“The automatic annual adjustment for Members of Congress is determined by a formula using a component of the Employment Cost Index (ECI),…”
“…This adjustment formula was established by the Ethics Reform Act of 1989.”
In Europe we call this wage indexation, you should try it!
Don’t worry, we won’t.
Canadians and Europeans, hold on to this stuff. There are people trying to take away universal healthcare from Canada and Brexit happened. This shit can happen to anyone if you get complacent.
Kamala Harris promises to tax the top 1%
Donald Trump promises to tax the bottom 50%
Democrats already have the government right now and before that was trump and before that was 8 years of democrats again.
So since 2012, democrats had the government for 8 years and republicans for 4 years.
What makes this time special that they will finally tax the 1%?
I still think that harris is better than trump a lot, but it kinda makes you think if these promises are just that, promises.
Dems had a house majority for 2 years before losing it in 2022, and have had a tied senate for 4 years, although technically there has been more R than D for all four but Independents caucusing with the D tip them to 51:49 currently. But, to argue your point, there has been meaningful changes in the last 4 years with changes to how the FTC, SEC, and FCC operates with some of the largest fines ever given to companies like Facebook as well as increased IRS funding which led to a proportional increase in audits for the wealthiest Americans.
And the Obama Era gave us a Medicaid Expansion, would have completely changed to a single payer system if not for Senate Republicans.
Next step: specific campaign promises unkept by end of term become criminal fraud
At this rate, we’re going to have our first trillionaire by the end of the decade. How much is enough? How big does that pile of money need to be?
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That’s not how exponential growth works. A ×10 increase in 1.2 years implies a ×1010 increase in 12 years. According to these numbers it should be ×10 in 6 years which roughly aligns with the end of the decade.
lol i seriously messed up the math there sorry, thanks for pointing it out
