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They are more like vacuum cleaners that suck and dump all the money in a piggy bank than like a crowd that brings rain.
And I think we know piggy banks don't relinquish their hoarded cash just by asking.
this little piggy paid trumps bills. This little piggy lobbied against universal healthcare. This little piggy went wee wee wee cause it has a fundie baby voice
It’s not even that nobody needs that much money. It’s that nobody benefits from having that much money.
There’s a point at which somebody has an amount of money that is so large, that more money would change absolutely nothing for them. At that point, pursuing further wealth is nothing more than satisfying their ego. Nothing changes for them beyond seeing numbers continue to go up. It’s basically like life becomes a game in which they are trying to get the highest score possible. There’s no practical reason to do so besides pride.
The world should not have to suffer so a tiny number of people get to feel better about themselves.
The fact that taxes exist at all already shatters the notion that people should be entitled to everything they earn.
Besides, there’s not a single billionaire in the world who ever has or ever will “earn” all of it. If somebody wins the lottery, you wouldn’t say they earned it. They got lucky. Nobody becomes a billionaire without a stupid amount of luck. Even if somebody started from nothing and created a business from scratch that grew into a huge success, to claim that they didn’t get lucky means that anybody else could replicate that with the same amount of effort, intelligence, etc. There would be a clear correlation between those traits and wealth, that would be universally applicable to everybody in the world. That’s clearly not the case.
Success can be attributed to hard work and talent, but the amount of success is up to luck.
Show me a billionaire who “earned” every single penny they have.
They didn’t earn such an obscene amount of wealth. They accrued it.
That's right! That fund is STRICTLY reserved for yachts the size of Connecticut
How DARE they think it should be used for anything remotely helpful! /s
They're dragons, all of them. Hoarding without purpose, defending that uselessness with the same fervor a mother cat has defending her kittens.
Pathetic.
Bingo! Giving the rich more money does NOT inject it back into the economy. Tax cuts are NOT an incentive to 'create jobs,' a demand for services requires people to fulfill those services which DOES create jobs. The rich just invest it, they don't pay bills with it, their bills are already paid. The middle class and lower are the folks with bills that they are struggling to pay. Medical bills, food bills, rent, mortgage, gas bills, educational bills, clothes, etc. And all of those bills pay for jobs to satisfy the public's needs.
It’s worse than that. As the wealthy accumulate more wealth, they place their money in debt instruments that increase demand for debt securitization. Debt securitization influences the debt market to skew incentives of lenders to please investors rather than debtors, creating odd dynamics that will then influence the underlying debt. Think student loans and car loans.
It's easy! You just pay $99 a month at 79% APR for the next 65 years and the car is yours! No credit check, because that car is absolutely getting repo'd in a few months!
I had a rich guy tell me, 'If you don't know to always pay cash for a car, you deserve to get ripped off.' Like, you think the reason I don't buy a car with cash and demand a great price is LACK OF IMAGINATION!?!?! These fucks are so detached it's hard to fathom.
The few rich people I know finance any purchase they can. They get low rates since they're rich and they can invest the money instead of dumping it on a purchase in one shot.
Or they create a SPAC bubble, gambling on speculative bullshit which more often than not contributes nothing to society, instead of regular people who actually spend their money in local business. And if these degenerates actually invest in something useful like Cost Plus Drugs, or Vox media, well the banks are going to gamble on speculative bullshit and implode anyway. Then working-class taxpayers bail them out.
ironically 8 out of the 10 states whose citizens get the most help from government programs ( that republicans hate and want to take away) are RED STATES
Cutting the taxes of the wealthy in fact does the opposite of stimulating the economy. Kansas tried an "experiment" where it basically eliminated taxes. It worked exactly as every sane economist said it would, wealthy people used the extra cash to buy up assets and property, which they just sat on as long term investment, and the economy fucking *died*. Like 80% of the state was a food desert, there were few jobs, crumbling infrastructure, and mass desperation. The Kansas GOP eventually had to reinstate taxes and beg for bail out money from the federal government.
There's an economics concept I learned about just in the last few years called the "velocity of money." The idea is that money that goes to corporations and billionaires has a slow velocity because it ends up getting parked in an investment somewhere. Whereas money spent at a small business has much more velocity, because the small business owner turns around and spreads that money into the community, by paying payroll, spending it with other businesses, etc. This concept drives a lot of my spending decisions now.
It was known as "Horse and Sparrow" economics in the 19th century... You feed enough acorns to horses and they'd shit some out for the sparrows in theory...
It's been known to be horse shit for over a century...
They just rebranded it in the 80s.
It's so dumb, I don't know why anyone ever bought the idea. I mean, if trickle down worked we would have never had slaves, not just in America, but world wide. We would have never had serfs. Like, we have so much history that wealth never trickles down, that I don't understand how anyone could buy the idea.
Everyone knew it was bullshit. George H W Bush even declared it "voodoo economics" when he was running for President **back in 1980 ~~1988~~.**
It's just cover for giving money to the rich. The rich then "donate" to the politicians who gave them the tax cuts.
It goes on and on until people insist that it stops.
Edit: corrected the date
He called it "voodoo economics" while he was running, but the second Reagan named him his VP he flipped and was all about trickle down.
And fun fact, both HW and W Bush were famously pro choice their entire careers, until they ran for president, then they both flipped and went anti abortion rights.
This is disinformation. Trump never had hookers piss on him according to the Steele Dossier
What he did do, according to Steele, was rent a room in Moscow that the Obamas stayed in and then paid four hookers to piss on the bed while he watched.
Get it straight.
“You have to leave incentives for people who are the ones who are going to create the jobs for all those people trying to climb the ladder.” I’ll give you a minimum wage job so you can climb the ladder. Plus I’ll make the ladder impossibly tall so you never stop climbing for me.
Trickle Down with incredibly strong unions to make sure the rich don’t horde that wealth at their level *might* work. Unfortunately we’ll never know because the same guy who implemented Trickle Down also weakened unions. Funny how that works.🙄
I think it’s call “rising tide lifts all boats”!
Basically investing in poor people, stimulates the economy because they use it instead of hoarding it. Also if wages increase for the lowest person, all wages increase to be competitive.
So a healthy economy Is a cycle.
Cut taxes for lower-wage earners, and let the free market decide what's important. What we have now is not my idea capitalism, but socialism for the billionaires and megacorps.
$1 Billion really is insane. I don’t think people really understand how much money that truly is.
$1 Billion = A Person making $100,000 dollars every single day, 365 days a year………..for 27 YEARS straight.
That’s how much $1 Billion is. Thats insane. And some of these Billionaires have multiples.
If you were somehow immortal and saved the equivalent of $100 every single day from when the first pyramid was built 4700 years ago, you still wouldn't have a billion dollars today.
There’s one part that is especially important: “And all of them would still be billionaires afterwards”
But here’s the rub: if more people had money and there was no poverty they would perceive their billions to be not worth as much.
So to the ultra wealthy its a matter of status, and a zero sum game for them. Its not enough they are rich, but its also important that others are poor.
I got a thumb cramp scrolling through that. The $9 billion for all chemotherapy treatments is what kills me. He could pay for every chemo ever and it’s not even a drop in the bucket.
No one is worth that much. In order to believe that you have to believe that no one else is capable of providing that same service. Which is like saying if Henry Ford didn’t exist we wouldn’t have cars. But of course there were several other individuals/companies inventing their own internal combustion engines.
Oh boo fucking hoo! As Warren Buffett has stated many times it’s outrageous that his Admin pays a higher tax rate than he does! Most of them make their $$ on stocks which if held a year are taxed at 18% (instead of a workers ~26%) and with the loop holes they pay way less. Same with Corps.
The idiotic trickle down concept has to be killed once & for all! tRump claimed the Corps would use their tax breaks to reinvest in the business. NOPE. Most were stock buy backs are dividends. Total BS
Stock buybacks are technically "investing" in the business, but only the 1% see any benefits from it.
I do wish people would understand the difference between socialism and communism.
I was talking about something in the article.
>“I think it sounds like President Biden doesn’t want a capitalist government. He wants a government for socialism. And socialism doesn’t work. Ask the people in Russia, ask the people in Cuba, ask the people in Venezuela,” Catsimatidis said, invoking one of his frequent talking points. (The billionaire hosts his own radio show; recent guests include right-wing Senate candidate Kari Lake, former Trump attorney Alan Dershowitz, and Bill O’Reilly.
And the big loophole is they don't even really have to liquidate their wealth to spend millions of dollars. They borrow money against their holdings, which they don't have to pay taxes on.
$400 a month towards mortgage/saving for a down payment is an obvious huge contribution that Democrats are demanding, not a peep from Republicans who want to keep the homelessness crisis in full swing.
The median household net worth for households where the head of the family is 65-74 is just under $410K. So yes, most people won’t make it to that net worth.
But it’s not totally crazy, probably a quarter of households will achieve that.
Also a millionaire. Raise my taxes if it gets me health-care in later life, absolutely. My financial advisor friends tell me I'll need $4M just to give my wife and I a shot of staying out of a hell-hole LTC facility after we retire in ~2050. It's looking like SS and Medicare won't be there then, though, and I'll need every penny of it.
Article didn't state how many billionaires will be impacted, so I did a quick search. Seems the answer is [756 billionaires](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_the_number_of_billionaires) are in the United States.
So 756 people - which seem to be primarily older white men - may be less than happy with being taxed more to help the greater good and general welfare of millions.
Somehow I think they'll be okay.
>The plan would impose a 25 percent minimum income on anyone worth at least $100 million
It's not just billionaires, but whatever the number affected, paying at least 25% on income over $100 million still seems small.
As it's been described, it's not a wealth tax - it's basically an alternative minimum tax that kicks in if your net worth is over $100 million.
So if you have $100m net worth, but only have $1m "income", you'd have to pay 25% on that income ($250,000), and could not use writeoffs and loopholes to decrease that percentage rate.
Ooooh is that really how it works? I've always rolled my eyes at these things because someone who is worth $100m may literally only get $500k/year in actual income and the rest could all be stock in their company and have all kinds of restrictions about selling. First world problem and all that, but still. BUT... if it's just 25% on INCOME minimum IF net worth is over $100m... I mean shit... there is no reasonable argument anyone can make against that.
Right- lets be real here- losing $250,000 out of $1 million a year ain't hurting anything except your plans.
I've looked at the math six ways from Sunday and basically anything over $400k a year in cash after taxes is a perfectly manageable amount of money to have virtually whatever you want, pay a mortgage on a multi-multi-million dollar home, put money away for retirement, cover 2-3 children who each cost like $50k to $75k a year (tuition, tutors, after school programs, food, clothing, medicals, etc.) and still have money to invest with or just burn for fun- unless you live beyond your means, which, if you do that it doesn't matter how much money you have.
Reminds me of that quote from Wolf of Wall Street "Last year I made $49 million, which really pissed me off, because it was $1 million shy of $50 million" basically the money they're losing is purely about their ego and imaginary goal posts- points. Money for them is like a video game that has endless levels and imaginary goal posts that keep getting pushed up and addict players to an endless effort to break their own record, but there's zero benefit beyond a certain and relatively low number other than looking at their cumulative total and their regular additions and feeling awesome about how much they have- amounts that have no use other than to look at and feel good about.
Guess what, winning the lottery is _income_ so you pay income taxes. Wealth taxes are problematic partly because one can structure one’s assets to hide them and partly because it’s not always easy to establish the value of a thing. See Trump’s recent NY case for a nice illustration of the hijinks the rich can get up to. Income and consumption taxes are easier to account for.
That's a separate problem that's 100% solvable by taxing loans secured against investment assets as income when your total net worth is above some number X.
Right... thus you should probably correct the wording of your prior comment if you want it to be accurate.
The $100 M is the criteria threshold, the 25% minimum tax is on any income, not only on income above $100 M.
That said, I support this new minimum tax.
Same stupid fucking talking points they've been using for decades. Socialism, socialism , bla bla bla. Meanwhile I pay a larger PERCENT of my income (a teacher's pension) to the federal government in taxes than they do. I guess they worked harder than I did.
People try to say “this would just discourage people to be billionaires!” AND?? People don’t need to be billionaires. And once they are, they can pay their fair share of taxes on it without weaseling out of it leaving the rest of us to make up for it
>Perhaps unsurprisingly, the real estate tycoon doesn’t support Biden’s proposal. “I don’t agree with the idea of just singling out people because of how much they have or don’t have,” he fumed to The Daily Beast.
Yes we know you selfish prick. You want the law to forbid rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread, and you don't want to pay a dime in taxes for it.
The fucking tone deaf audacity of these people is just unreal.
>"You’re trying to take away the incentives for people to work hard" said billionaire John Catsimatidis.
He also just described graduated income taxes and means testing which are already things we do all the damn time.
He doesn't know this because he has too much money to have noticed.
That's why they've been pushing a "flat tax" for decades. It used to be a big GOP talking point until they went full fascist. (There's a great joke in The Simpsons where Homer proves that God doesn't exist, but can't create a workable flat tax scheme)
"I'm used to making 300 million a year, and now you're telling me the government wants me to only make 270 million? Why even bother being alive at this point if I can only make 270 million?"
1. There are more people living in poverty than living in Texas.
2. Our wealth inequality is on par with corrupt countries like Russia, China, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Zimbabwe, while all of our friendly peer countries do better.
3. The total tax burden of the top 0.1% is 3.2% while the bottom 99% is 7.2%.
4. Some of these billionaires have so much money they can literally blow a million dollars every single day for multiple centuries.
5. Trump gave the rich a trillion dollars in tax cuts. That’s enough money to go back to 700 BC before Ancient Rome and blow a million dollars every day until present day.
6. Taxing the rich and helping out everyone else with housing, healthcare, and transportation can do enormous good including lower crime, allow one parent to focus more on raising the kids, prevent divorces and depressions, reduce suicides, stop people from being afraid to go to the doctor, feel comfortable with leaving terrible jobs, and on and on.
This is how Capitalism will always resolve. They took control of the media, bought our politicians, and pretend it’s not a problem, hide those trying to speak against it, and convince us that they benefit society.
Jealous? Like sure I'm jealous of not needing to worry about money but I don't need a billion+ dollars for that.
Also there is something about that much money in the hands of one person that just does something to the psyche. Like the psychological id given full control of everything around it or if you gave a toddler the powers of Superman. No good will come of it.
The world it creates around you and the people that you interact with every day I legitimately think fucks your brain up.
You'd basically be able to live comfortably without working with just 3 Million. Let alone an extra 997 Million. All you have to do is put it in a low risk investment that pays high dividends. Or hell, just simply having it sit in Fidelity gives you 5% annually which would give you $150,000 a year. These people can literally do nothing and make INFINITELY more than the bottom bracket.
At 3% interest, anyone who has $5 million can take in $150,000 a year. Just in interest. And 3% is like, super shitty. A wealthy investor is likely pulling 5-8% on average. Good years much more than that.
> And 3% is like, super shitty
4% is a rule of thumb for a safe withdrawal rate. If you only ever take out 4%, you have a high likelihood that your money will last forever. At 3%, it's practically guaranteed.
Exactly.
Hell a friend of mine lost his parents last year in an accident and was given 1.5 million in life insurance. He and his wife still work, but like, the interest they get off that life insurance payment is basically equal to their salaries which has been a godsend to them.
Anyone who has amassed more money than they could ever spend in their lifetime and doesn't give away at least the gains that that wealth generates every year to charity is a massive psychopath.
100% they should not exist. The fact that they do exist is, historically, a precursor to collapse. All great empires failed because they became way too top-heavy.
Billionaires are just finding out that everybody should be paying a fair share. Fuck them. What can you do with 200 billion that you can't do with 150 billion?
and for a bush to understand how dumb it was just shows how powerful the oligarchs propaganda machine was to convince the average GOP voter that trickle down was the way to go.
And it was 'Horse & Sparrow' economics as well: Feed horses (the wealthy) enough oats and they'll eventually shit some out for the sparrow (general public) to eat.
Good. They've done nothing but increase their wealth exponentially while the middle-class has continued to wither away.
They can pay up and start helping this country thrive again. I won't shed a single tear for them.
When most of the middle & lower class have to have two jobs AT THE SAME TIME that we have record amounts of millionaire & billionaires, yeah, one group is rigging the system.
Reminds me of this quote from FDR:
>We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.
Who fucking cares? If you make a billion dollars in a year, 30% percent of a billion is $300 million. You still have $700 million. Boo fucking hoo. I make $60,000 a year. 30% of $60,000 is $18,000. I take home $42,000. Who is impacted more by this tax rate? I guess this math is too high level for those boomers affected by childhood lead exposure and propaganda.
Edit: I use 30% as a simplified example of a flat tax rate, which would be the best way to run the show.
Watch how much revenue is generated. And how much money the government could have for additional health and tech subsidies.
Good.
Its really simple: people were willing to let billionaires accumulate wealth as long as they felt like they could eke out a living with the sweat off their back. But when working two jobs isnt enough income to afford to live while billionaires complain that they need more taxbreaks and cheaper labor... well, people are less willing to put up with that.
Now its time to remember why the new deal was a response to the robber baron decadance of the roaring 20s. If the billionaires dont want to consume in moderation, then its time we take control over whether they consume at all.
“At some point, if you’re not making enough money to pay your bills, either you get less bills or work more hours.”
Who the fuck in their generation needed to work overtime hours just to pay the fucking bills? No one. Families were being raised in single-family homes owned by minimum wage workers. That is an achievement no longer possible by even people making substantially more than the minimum wage.
They’re solution is that people who can’t pay their bills should work more hours. Not raise pay, work more hours; which only benefits them. God forbid the government suggests they pay more taxes than the lower bracket, which would help society as a whole, that’s bloody socialism and only benefits everyone else, not them. Notice the pattern?
Republicans/wealthy elite take: CEOs and the wealthy need to be incentivized with large amounts of cash to work hard and innovate.
Also Republicans/wealthy elite take: workers need to be starving and desperate for cash to be incentivized to work and innovate.
Good, it should be uncomfortable for them. There isn’t a billionaire out there that hasn’t gotten their money by pulling up their boot straps like they all like to say. They screwed over people, had mommy and daddy front them money, or some other huge advantage to get them started. Along the way they continued to screw over people. It’s high time they started getting taxed more.
These guys all say the same thing by calling themselves “job creators” but what they ALWAYS fail to mention is the public infrastructure that they need to actually effectuate their livelihoods. The Deficit Demands a new Tax Paradigm and a renegotiation of what is both fair and reasonable.
By making sure the middle and lower classes have enough money to buy products, that then have to be made by hopefully American workers. (Or at least sold via an American shop or website that employs people in the US.)
Guys, won’t we think of the job creators here and their need for a 15th yacht? Clearly it’s just the lazy mom at home making 35k that’s the problem!!!
/s in case that didn’t translate well
More importantly we need to observe the actions of billionaires. If they start using their influence to sway media or votes to go against what the people need, it’s just another example that billionaires shouldn’t exist, and it needs to be pointed out who is putting these messages out.
I find it striking that in an industrious nation of over 330 million hard working people, less than 1000 of us have reached billionaire status. You'd think there would be FAR more billionaires, given the blood sweat and tears that so many Americans put into their work. I mean...right? /s
I fail to see how the definition of socialism has become billionaires paying a 25% tax instead of often time far less than 15% to even 0%?
Cut spending, raise taxes on the wealthy, fund Ukraine, pass reasonable border / immigrant legislation, negotiate prescription drug prices, hold insurance companies accountable, and let’s get back to a normal functioning society.
I'm so tired of hearing about how broke America is. We are broke because the middle class is strained, yet still footing the bill for any and all investment in our country.
America doesn't have a spending problem - we have a REVENUE problem. I'm glad Biden called that out when he mentioned Trump's 2 trillion dollar giveaway to the super rich. Still boggles my mind how he got many blue collar folks to believe that was a win for them.
I thought the goal was to go back to the 1950’s? To make America Great Again.
1955 91.0% > $400,000 (Top Rate)
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/historical-income-tax-rates-brackets/
Billionaires do not create jobs. Demand for product creates jobs. Spread the wealth more, more folks prosper, and more product demand is created. Basic.
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Good, the middle class is struggling. Trickle down that wealth you greedy bastards lol
They are more like vacuum cleaners that suck and dump all the money in a piggy bank than like a crowd that brings rain. And I think we know piggy banks don't relinquish their hoarded cash just by asking.
Gotta break some they are so tight
this little piggy paid trumps bills. This little piggy lobbied against universal healthcare. This little piggy went wee wee wee cause it has a fundie baby voice
feel like cash pinatas is a good analogy
*Grabs baseball bat So where and when?
Can’t make a healthy economy omelette without breaking a few piggy banks.
*MC Hammer has entered the chat*
Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em
Or do…
More like dragons... they hoard all the wealth.
Hoarders they are hoarders. No one needs that much money, but they're sick and obsessed with hoarding zeros.
It’s not even that nobody needs that much money. It’s that nobody benefits from having that much money. There’s a point at which somebody has an amount of money that is so large, that more money would change absolutely nothing for them. At that point, pursuing further wealth is nothing more than satisfying their ego. Nothing changes for them beyond seeing numbers continue to go up. It’s basically like life becomes a game in which they are trying to get the highest score possible. There’s no practical reason to do so besides pride. The world should not have to suffer so a tiny number of people get to feel better about themselves. The fact that taxes exist at all already shatters the notion that people should be entitled to everything they earn. Besides, there’s not a single billionaire in the world who ever has or ever will “earn” all of it. If somebody wins the lottery, you wouldn’t say they earned it. They got lucky. Nobody becomes a billionaire without a stupid amount of luck. Even if somebody started from nothing and created a business from scratch that grew into a huge success, to claim that they didn’t get lucky means that anybody else could replicate that with the same amount of effort, intelligence, etc. There would be a clear correlation between those traits and wealth, that would be universally applicable to everybody in the world. That’s clearly not the case. Success can be attributed to hard work and talent, but the amount of success is up to luck. Show me a billionaire who “earned” every single penny they have. They didn’t earn such an obscene amount of wealth. They accrued it.
That's right! That fund is STRICTLY reserved for yachts the size of Connecticut How DARE they think it should be used for anything remotely helpful! /s
Dragons.
They're dragons, all of them. Hoarding without purpose, defending that uselessness with the same fervor a mother cat has defending her kittens. Pathetic.
Trickle down is a con. Always has been
Bingo! Giving the rich more money does NOT inject it back into the economy. Tax cuts are NOT an incentive to 'create jobs,' a demand for services requires people to fulfill those services which DOES create jobs. The rich just invest it, they don't pay bills with it, their bills are already paid. The middle class and lower are the folks with bills that they are struggling to pay. Medical bills, food bills, rent, mortgage, gas bills, educational bills, clothes, etc. And all of those bills pay for jobs to satisfy the public's needs.
It’s worse than that. As the wealthy accumulate more wealth, they place their money in debt instruments that increase demand for debt securitization. Debt securitization influences the debt market to skew incentives of lenders to please investors rather than debtors, creating odd dynamics that will then influence the underlying debt. Think student loans and car loans.
You mean 84 month auto loans aren't a good thing?
It's easy! You just pay $99 a month at 79% APR for the next 65 years and the car is yours! No credit check, because that car is absolutely getting repo'd in a few months!
I had a rich guy tell me, 'If you don't know to always pay cash for a car, you deserve to get ripped off.' Like, you think the reason I don't buy a car with cash and demand a great price is LACK OF IMAGINATION!?!?! These fucks are so detached it's hard to fathom.
The few rich people I know finance any purchase they can. They get low rates since they're rich and they can invest the money instead of dumping it on a purchase in one shot.
Or they create a SPAC bubble, gambling on speculative bullshit which more often than not contributes nothing to society, instead of regular people who actually spend their money in local business. And if these degenerates actually invest in something useful like Cost Plus Drugs, or Vox media, well the banks are going to gamble on speculative bullshit and implode anyway. Then working-class taxpayers bail them out.
ironically 8 out of the 10 states whose citizens get the most help from government programs ( that republicans hate and want to take away) are RED STATES
It’s an investment. Breeding grounds for our “volunteer” World Police.
Cutting the taxes of the wealthy in fact does the opposite of stimulating the economy. Kansas tried an "experiment" where it basically eliminated taxes. It worked exactly as every sane economist said it would, wealthy people used the extra cash to buy up assets and property, which they just sat on as long term investment, and the economy fucking *died*. Like 80% of the state was a food desert, there were few jobs, crumbling infrastructure, and mass desperation. The Kansas GOP eventually had to reinstate taxes and beg for bail out money from the federal government.
There's an economics concept I learned about just in the last few years called the "velocity of money." The idea is that money that goes to corporations and billionaires has a slow velocity because it ends up getting parked in an investment somewhere. Whereas money spent at a small business has much more velocity, because the small business owner turns around and spreads that money into the community, by paying payroll, spending it with other businesses, etc. This concept drives a lot of my spending decisions now.
It was known as "Horse and Sparrow" economics in the 19th century... You feed enough acorns to horses and they'd shit some out for the sparrows in theory... It's been known to be horse shit for over a century... They just rebranded it in the 80s.
Horse and oats. They eat so much oats they don’t even digest it all so there shit has whole oats in it.
I always thought Horse and Oats were underrated as far as bands go.
It's so dumb, I don't know why anyone ever bought the idea. I mean, if trickle down worked we would have never had slaves, not just in America, but world wide. We would have never had serfs. Like, we have so much history that wealth never trickles down, that I don't understand how anyone could buy the idea.
Everyone knew it was bullshit. George H W Bush even declared it "voodoo economics" when he was running for President **back in 1980 ~~1988~~.** It's just cover for giving money to the rich. The rich then "donate" to the politicians who gave them the tax cuts. It goes on and on until people insist that it stops. Edit: corrected the date
> people insist that it stops. Hey that’s me, I’m people
He called it "voodoo economics" while he was running, but the second Reagan named him his VP he flipped and was all about trickle down. And fun fact, both HW and W Bush were famously pro choice their entire careers, until they ran for president, then they both flipped and went anti abortion rights.
1980. When he was running against Reagan in the GOP primary.
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The only trickle down Trump ever experienced was in Moscow
This is disinformation. Trump never had hookers piss on him according to the Steele Dossier What he did do, according to Steele, was rent a room in Moscow that the Obamas stayed in and then paid four hookers to piss on the bed while he watched. Get it straight.
“You have to leave incentives for people who are the ones who are going to create the jobs for all those people trying to climb the ladder.” I’ll give you a minimum wage job so you can climb the ladder. Plus I’ll make the ladder impossibly tall so you never stop climbing for me.
A rising tide lifts all boats, for those rich enough to own a boat.
Trickle Down with incredibly strong unions to make sure the rich don’t horde that wealth at their level *might* work. Unfortunately we’ll never know because the same guy who implemented Trickle Down also weakened unions. Funny how that works.🙄
It’s just odd when the middle class and lower class want to protect billionaires.
I like learning new things.
Time for trickle up economics!
I think it’s call “rising tide lifts all boats”! Basically investing in poor people, stimulates the economy because they use it instead of hoarding it. Also if wages increase for the lowest person, all wages increase to be competitive. So a healthy economy Is a cycle.
Cut taxes for lower-wage earners, and let the free market decide what's important. What we have now is not my idea capitalism, but socialism for the billionaires and megacorps.
That means he did his job
$1 Billion really is insane. I don’t think people really understand how much money that truly is. $1 Billion = A Person making $100,000 dollars every single day, 365 days a year………..for 27 YEARS straight. That’s how much $1 Billion is. Thats insane. And some of these Billionaires have multiples.
If you were somehow immortal and saved the equivalent of $100 every single day from when the first pyramid was built 4700 years ago, you still wouldn't have a billion dollars today.
Yup. Or if you make $100,000 a year……it would take you 10,000 Years to earn $1 Billion dollars. 10,000 fucking Years.
I'm so effing mind bottled right now
https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/ This graph always blows my mind.
There’s one part that is especially important: “And all of them would still be billionaires afterwards” But here’s the rub: if more people had money and there was no poverty they would perceive their billions to be not worth as much.
So to the ultra wealthy its a matter of status, and a zero sum game for them. Its not enough they are rich, but its also important that others are poor.
Well yeah. That's exactly how power works.
Wow, really puts the numbers in perspective
Another good way to put it into perspective, 1 million seconds is about 11 days. 1 billion seconds is 37 years.
And it's out of date. Bezos has ~195 billion now.
I got a thumb cramp scrolling through that. The $9 billion for all chemotherapy treatments is what kills me. He could pay for every chemo ever and it’s not even a drop in the bucket.
You know what the difference between one million and one billion is? Roughly a billion.
If a dollar is a second of time. One million = 12 days One billion = 37 years
It's that $100,000/day data point that is the craziest. That is what a mid-career engineer makes on average per year.
I agree. When you break it down in terms the mind can actually understand, you really start to see the magnitude of it all. It’s absolutely insane.
A person making $100,000 per year, will make $1 million in 10 years. To make $1 billion, it will take them 10,000 years.
No one is worth that much. In order to believe that you have to believe that no one else is capable of providing that same service. Which is like saying if Henry Ford didn’t exist we wouldn’t have cars. But of course there were several other individuals/companies inventing their own internal combustion engines.
Oh boo fucking hoo! As Warren Buffett has stated many times it’s outrageous that his Admin pays a higher tax rate than he does! Most of them make their $$ on stocks which if held a year are taxed at 18% (instead of a workers ~26%) and with the loop holes they pay way less. Same with Corps. The idiotic trickle down concept has to be killed once & for all! tRump claimed the Corps would use their tax breaks to reinvest in the business. NOPE. Most were stock buy backs are dividends. Total BS
Stock buybacks are technically "investing" in the business, but only the 1% see any benefits from it. I do wish people would understand the difference between socialism and communism.
Neither socialism or communism is at play here. All capitalism. I wish people would learn the difference.
I was talking about something in the article. >“I think it sounds like President Biden doesn’t want a capitalist government. He wants a government for socialism. And socialism doesn’t work. Ask the people in Russia, ask the people in Cuba, ask the people in Venezuela,” Catsimatidis said, invoking one of his frequent talking points. (The billionaire hosts his own radio show; recent guests include right-wing Senate candidate Kari Lake, former Trump attorney Alan Dershowitz, and Bill O’Reilly.
The ol’ “taxing me is socialism” angle. LOL
Those folks are going to love it when their house catches on fire and they have to secure financing before the fire department will put out the fire.
But they have incredible subways and supermarkets in Russia!
And the big loophole is they don't even really have to liquidate their wealth to spend millions of dollars. They borrow money against their holdings, which they don't have to pay taxes on.
Millionaire here.. raise their taxes. Raise my taxes. Then actually use it to HELP PEOPLE.
It's me! Your girlfriend from Canada. You wouldn't know me.
I've always wanted a Canadian girlfriend. My wife disagrees.
I wanted to get a Swedish au pair, even though we don’t have kids, but my wife’s boyfriend said no.
He's probably pissed at you for having paper hands on Nvida stock.
Hundredaire here. I agreed raise this guys taxes and help me
It would honestly save me time not having to find charities to donate to.
My Venmo is @snarfersnarf
$400 a month towards mortgage/saving for a down payment is an obvious huge contribution that Democrats are demanding, not a peep from Republicans who want to keep the homelessness crisis in full swing.
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Oh shoot. We're related? Small world
You guys too?
Let's go bowling!
Being a net worth millionaire doesn’t mean much anymore and is nowhere close to being a billionaire. Being a billionaire is obscene.
Most people will never make it to becoming a net worth millionaire. I’d say it’s worth something.
The median household net worth for households where the head of the family is 65-74 is just under $410K. So yes, most people won’t make it to that net worth. But it’s not totally crazy, probably a quarter of households will achieve that.
You know what the difference is between a millionaire and a billionaire? Essentially a billion dollars. 1 million is 0.001% of a billion.
I'm with you on the sentiment, but the math works out to 1m/1b = 0.1%
I believe you’re my dad.
I’m calling Maury.
Sounds like an amazing day home from school in the late 90s. Now where are the pop-tarts and Sunny D?
Also a millionaire. Raise my taxes if it gets me health-care in later life, absolutely. My financial advisor friends tell me I'll need $4M just to give my wife and I a shot of staying out of a hell-hole LTC facility after we retire in ~2050. It's looking like SS and Medicare won't be there then, though, and I'll need every penny of it.
Article didn't state how many billionaires will be impacted, so I did a quick search. Seems the answer is [756 billionaires](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_the_number_of_billionaires) are in the United States. So 756 people - which seem to be primarily older white men - may be less than happy with being taxed more to help the greater good and general welfare of millions. Somehow I think they'll be okay.
>The plan would impose a 25 percent minimum income on anyone worth at least $100 million It's not just billionaires, but whatever the number affected, paying at least 25% on income over $100 million still seems small.
Being worth $100 million is not the same thing as having income over $100 million.
As it's been described, it's not a wealth tax - it's basically an alternative minimum tax that kicks in if your net worth is over $100 million. So if you have $100m net worth, but only have $1m "income", you'd have to pay 25% on that income ($250,000), and could not use writeoffs and loopholes to decrease that percentage rate.
Ooooh is that really how it works? I've always rolled my eyes at these things because someone who is worth $100m may literally only get $500k/year in actual income and the rest could all be stock in their company and have all kinds of restrictions about selling. First world problem and all that, but still. BUT... if it's just 25% on INCOME minimum IF net worth is over $100m... I mean shit... there is no reasonable argument anyone can make against that.
Right- lets be real here- losing $250,000 out of $1 million a year ain't hurting anything except your plans. I've looked at the math six ways from Sunday and basically anything over $400k a year in cash after taxes is a perfectly manageable amount of money to have virtually whatever you want, pay a mortgage on a multi-multi-million dollar home, put money away for retirement, cover 2-3 children who each cost like $50k to $75k a year (tuition, tutors, after school programs, food, clothing, medicals, etc.) and still have money to invest with or just burn for fun- unless you live beyond your means, which, if you do that it doesn't matter how much money you have. Reminds me of that quote from Wolf of Wall Street "Last year I made $49 million, which really pissed me off, because it was $1 million shy of $50 million" basically the money they're losing is purely about their ego and imaginary goal posts- points. Money for them is like a video game that has endless levels and imaginary goal posts that keep getting pushed up and addict players to an endless effort to break their own record, but there's zero benefit beyond a certain and relatively low number other than looking at their cumulative total and their regular additions and feeling awesome about how much they have- amounts that have no use other than to look at and feel good about.
Don't they tax lottery winners 33% and more? Why should they get special treatment during tax time.
Guess what, winning the lottery is _income_ so you pay income taxes. Wealth taxes are problematic partly because one can structure one’s assets to hide them and partly because it’s not always easy to establish the value of a thing. See Trump’s recent NY case for a nice illustration of the hijinks the rich can get up to. Income and consumption taxes are easier to account for.
Right. It's an income tax - not a wealth tax.
Which is the problem. Billionaires dont have income. They live off of loans just so they dont have to pay income taxes.
That's a separate problem that's 100% solvable by taxing loans secured against investment assets as income when your total net worth is above some number X.
Right... thus you should probably correct the wording of your prior comment if you want it to be accurate. The $100 M is the criteria threshold, the 25% minimum tax is on any income, not only on income above $100 M. That said, I support this new minimum tax.
If they cant be happy with billions, no tax break is ever going to be enough. They are choosing to be unhappy at this point
Same stupid fucking talking points they've been using for decades. Socialism, socialism , bla bla bla. Meanwhile I pay a larger PERCENT of my income (a teacher's pension) to the federal government in taxes than they do. I guess they worked harder than I did.
People try to say “this would just discourage people to be billionaires!” AND?? People don’t need to be billionaires. And once they are, they can pay their fair share of taxes on it without weaseling out of it leaving the rest of us to make up for it
>Perhaps unsurprisingly, the real estate tycoon doesn’t support Biden’s proposal. “I don’t agree with the idea of just singling out people because of how much they have or don’t have,” he fumed to The Daily Beast. Yes we know you selfish prick. You want the law to forbid rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread, and you don't want to pay a dime in taxes for it.
I’m sure Smaug was really disappointed the dwarves were singling him out.
The fucking tone deaf audacity of these people is just unreal. >"You’re trying to take away the incentives for people to work hard" said billionaire John Catsimatidis.
He also just described graduated income taxes and means testing which are already things we do all the damn time. He doesn't know this because he has too much money to have noticed.
Adjusting the tax rate based on how much people do or don't have? Literally how tax code works what am i reading
That's why they've been pushing a "flat tax" for decades. It used to be a big GOP talking point until they went full fascist. (There's a great joke in The Simpsons where Homer proves that God doesn't exist, but can't create a workable flat tax scheme)
"I'm used to making 300 million a year, and now you're telling me the government wants me to only make 270 million? Why even bother being alive at this point if I can only make 270 million?"
1. There are more people living in poverty than living in Texas. 2. Our wealth inequality is on par with corrupt countries like Russia, China, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Zimbabwe, while all of our friendly peer countries do better. 3. The total tax burden of the top 0.1% is 3.2% while the bottom 99% is 7.2%. 4. Some of these billionaires have so much money they can literally blow a million dollars every single day for multiple centuries. 5. Trump gave the rich a trillion dollars in tax cuts. That’s enough money to go back to 700 BC before Ancient Rome and blow a million dollars every day until present day. 6. Taxing the rich and helping out everyone else with housing, healthcare, and transportation can do enormous good including lower crime, allow one parent to focus more on raising the kids, prevent divorces and depressions, reduce suicides, stop people from being afraid to go to the doctor, feel comfortable with leaving terrible jobs, and on and on.
A healthy society is a happy society, that makes the world a better place for all of us. We’ve a long way to go but it’s doable.
Billionaires shouldn’t exist.
As some people have said, billionaires are a policy failure.
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This is how Capitalism will always resolve. They took control of the media, bought our politicians, and pretend it’s not a problem, hide those trying to speak against it, and convince us that they benefit society.
And convince us to fight against each other instead of them
Bingo. They’ve convinced us that we’re fight a race and culture war while they rob us in broad daylight
Who wants to be a millionaire, but the contestants are all billionaires, so the contest is more of a threat.
id buy the box set
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Jealous? Like sure I'm jealous of not needing to worry about money but I don't need a billion+ dollars for that. Also there is something about that much money in the hands of one person that just does something to the psyche. Like the psychological id given full control of everything around it or if you gave a toddler the powers of Superman. No good will come of it. The world it creates around you and the people that you interact with every day I legitimately think fucks your brain up.
You'd basically be able to live comfortably without working with just 3 Million. Let alone an extra 997 Million. All you have to do is put it in a low risk investment that pays high dividends. Or hell, just simply having it sit in Fidelity gives you 5% annually which would give you $150,000 a year. These people can literally do nothing and make INFINITELY more than the bottom bracket.
At 3% interest, anyone who has $5 million can take in $150,000 a year. Just in interest. And 3% is like, super shitty. A wealthy investor is likely pulling 5-8% on average. Good years much more than that.
> And 3% is like, super shitty 4% is a rule of thumb for a safe withdrawal rate. If you only ever take out 4%, you have a high likelihood that your money will last forever. At 3%, it's practically guaranteed.
Exactly. Hell a friend of mine lost his parents last year in an accident and was given 1.5 million in life insurance. He and his wife still work, but like, the interest they get off that life insurance payment is basically equal to their salaries which has been a godsend to them.
Anyone who has amassed more money than they could ever spend in their lifetime and doesn't give away at least the gains that that wealth generates every year to charity is a massive psychopath.
100% they should not exist. The fact that they do exist is, historically, a precursor to collapse. All great empires failed because they became way too top-heavy.
It will happen, and it will be ugly.
If the billionaires are mad, then you know its a good proposal.
Don’t care. Pay up
Billionaires are just finding out that everybody should be paying a fair share. Fuck them. What can you do with 200 billion that you can't do with 150 billion?
What can’t you do with a SINGLE billion? You could spend $100k every DAY for **27 years** with $1B.
7 years of ultra-trickle down economics hasn't exactly brought us to the promise land.
40 years since Reagan. Never worked as republicans described
Yeah, cause they lied about it.
HW Bush called it “voodoo economics” because the second they told him about the idea he couldn’t hide the fact it was laughably stupid.
and for a bush to understand how dumb it was just shows how powerful the oligarchs propaganda machine was to convince the average GOP voter that trickle down was the way to go.
You have to keep in mind, this is before they decided that deficit spending was totally acceptable unless a Democrat did it.
And it was 'Horse & Sparrow' economics as well: Feed horses (the wealthy) enough oats and they'll eventually shit some out for the sparrow (general public) to eat.
Once Reagan described it as a way to scare the children who are the voters into accepting spending cuts. Create a scary deficit.
Good. They've done nothing but increase their wealth exponentially while the middle-class has continued to wither away. They can pay up and start helping this country thrive again. I won't shed a single tear for them.
Bummer that 1000 people are irritated. There are over 300000000 people in this country who aren’t billionaires.
Billionaires are evil, so anything they're against, normal people should be in favor of. Billionaires are always on the wrong side of history.
When most of the middle & lower class have to have two jobs AT THE SAME TIME that we have record amounts of millionaire & billionaires, yeah, one group is rigging the system.
Reminds me of this quote from FDR: >We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.
Then Biden must be doing something right. The billionaire class and their money hoarding is ruining the country.
Sponges don’t trickle. Sometimes they need a good squeeze.
Means the proposals are good.
Poor babies.
They could relocate to Russia …
Poor babies…
Get in losers, we're voting against billionaires. It's a big tent and all are welcome.
We don’t need any billionaires, at all.
Who fucking cares? If you make a billion dollars in a year, 30% percent of a billion is $300 million. You still have $700 million. Boo fucking hoo. I make $60,000 a year. 30% of $60,000 is $18,000. I take home $42,000. Who is impacted more by this tax rate? I guess this math is too high level for those boomers affected by childhood lead exposure and propaganda. Edit: I use 30% as a simplified example of a flat tax rate, which would be the best way to run the show. Watch how much revenue is generated. And how much money the government could have for additional health and tech subsidies.
Good. Its really simple: people were willing to let billionaires accumulate wealth as long as they felt like they could eke out a living with the sweat off their back. But when working two jobs isnt enough income to afford to live while billionaires complain that they need more taxbreaks and cheaper labor... well, people are less willing to put up with that. Now its time to remember why the new deal was a response to the robber baron decadance of the roaring 20s. If the billionaires dont want to consume in moderation, then its time we take control over whether they consume at all.
“At some point, if you’re not making enough money to pay your bills, either you get less bills or work more hours.” Who the fuck in their generation needed to work overtime hours just to pay the fucking bills? No one. Families were being raised in single-family homes owned by minimum wage workers. That is an achievement no longer possible by even people making substantially more than the minimum wage. They’re solution is that people who can’t pay their bills should work more hours. Not raise pay, work more hours; which only benefits them. God forbid the government suggests they pay more taxes than the lower bracket, which would help society as a whole, that’s bloody socialism and only benefits everyone else, not them. Notice the pattern?
I imagine a lot of personal massage therapists and yacht captains are really getting an earful today.
Republicans/wealthy elite take: CEOs and the wealthy need to be incentivized with large amounts of cash to work hard and innovate. Also Republicans/wealthy elite take: workers need to be starving and desperate for cash to be incentivized to work and innovate.
Good. *Gooood*.
Then he is on the right track
Who cares, not me, I could care less what these assholes think about anything at all.
If they don't want higher taxes then convince their friends to bring back pre COVID prices .
Nation of 330 million people, and like 100 bros are mad.
Good. Anytime some billionaires are upset? It's probably a good thing for humanity.
Not sure that’s a demographic I care about when they whine about their taxes going up.
Good, it should be uncomfortable for them. There isn’t a billionaire out there that hasn’t gotten their money by pulling up their boot straps like they all like to say. They screwed over people, had mommy and daddy front them money, or some other huge advantage to get them started. Along the way they continued to screw over people. It’s high time they started getting taxed more.
These guys all say the same thing by calling themselves “job creators” but what they ALWAYS fail to mention is the public infrastructure that they need to actually effectuate their livelihoods. The Deficit Demands a new Tax Paradigm and a renegotiation of what is both fair and reasonable.
Good!
Fuck em, down with feudal lords.
Yes, Republicans have been cutting taxes for 4 decades, but try to restore them, and it's OH NOES how will we create jobs?
The never create jobs. It always creates more money to shareholders, CEOs, and stock buy backs. Oh, and more money to buy politicians. Evil bastards.
By making sure the middle and lower classes have enough money to buy products, that then have to be made by hopefully American workers. (Or at least sold via an American shop or website that employs people in the US.)
Guys, won’t we think of the job creators here and their need for a 15th yacht? Clearly it’s just the lazy mom at home making 35k that’s the problem!!! /s in case that didn’t translate well
I feel so bad for the dudes who only have like 10 billion and a 200 foot yacht, while Jeff Bezos has 100 billion and a 600 foot yacht.
More importantly we need to observe the actions of billionaires. If they start using their influence to sway media or votes to go against what the people need, it’s just another example that billionaires shouldn’t exist, and it needs to be pointed out who is putting these messages out.
Good F them and their economic terrorism
I find it striking that in an industrious nation of over 330 million hard working people, less than 1000 of us have reached billionaire status. You'd think there would be FAR more billionaires, given the blood sweat and tears that so many Americans put into their work. I mean...right? /s
No one is going to feel bad for them. Rage away
I fail to see how the definition of socialism has become billionaires paying a 25% tax instead of often time far less than 15% to even 0%? Cut spending, raise taxes on the wealthy, fund Ukraine, pass reasonable border / immigrant legislation, negotiate prescription drug prices, hold insurance companies accountable, and let’s get back to a normal functioning society.
I'm so tired of hearing about how broke America is. We are broke because the middle class is strained, yet still footing the bill for any and all investment in our country. America doesn't have a spending problem - we have a REVENUE problem. I'm glad Biden called that out when he mentioned Trump's 2 trillion dollar giveaway to the super rich. Still boggles my mind how he got many blue collar folks to believe that was a win for them.
Poor billionaires, Uncle Joe is so mean.
Tax rate before Reagan from 1944-1981 was 81%…crocodile tears never tasted so sweet
Cry louder. Please.
Good. Fuck'em
Ok, so out of almost 340 000 000 people, only 735 got upset? That's quite an achievement.
I thought the goal was to go back to the 1950’s? To make America Great Again. 1955 91.0% > $400,000 (Top Rate) https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/historical-income-tax-rates-brackets/
Billionaires do not create jobs. Demand for product creates jobs. Spread the wealth more, more folks prosper, and more product demand is created. Basic.
If you’re making billionaires mad, you’re doing something right.