Opinion of billionaires

[Higgs]

It's stupid to judge an entire class of people, but if we're being grossly generalistic then hey they provide jobs for countless amounts of people, so huge FFs.

"It's wrong to judge entire groups of people" says the person with "President Trump, get used to saying it" in their signature.

ooooooooooook.

Can you explain? Because it sounds like you're making a generalization about anyone who supports Trump.

[RaphaelDLG]

Billionaires should give enough of their money that they stop being billionaires (or hell, they should limit themselves to 10 million as a maximum). Problem solved.

Being a Billionaire means you have more then a Billion dollars worth of assets. Many of those assets are how they make more money. And you can't donate millions or billions(depending on how many billions one makes) of dollars to charity every year unless you make billions of dollars every year. Plus a certain amount(don't make this a debate about whether the current amount is so much that its harmful, because I really don't care to discuss that question now, and that isn't the point) of investments by rich people are helpful to the economy(as while as occasionally getting projects like asteroid defense systems that could become very important to have but no one wants to fund rn).

Of course, all of this pretends that the middle class isn't just as guilty of not giving enough back.

Uh, no.  By definition, the investments by rich people are in things that have a return on investment, largely without regard to their social utility.  Sometimes, those things are good, like new pills or something.  Sometimes they are socially deleterious, like putting your stock in mcdonalds or a tobacco company or budweiser or something.

But stuff like asteroid defense systems, massive research projects, dams, etc are by definition things that are too expensive/provide too little/too nebulous an ROI for even one billionaire to fund by themselves.  That's why all of those things (like computers, missiles, hoover dams, etc) start as government-funded research projects.

And it would be a better investment for the government to just take a huge chunk of the billionaire's income and pool it with other tax funds to do those impossibly large-scale, low ROI investment projects.  Or provide quality healthcare and education to jamal and jethro so that, instead of being chronically unhealthy and going to roach-infested sh**tty schools much different than the one you go to, they can have a chance to be the next big inventor/entrepreneur billionaire.

And most billion-dollar wealth is either inherited or made through compounded interest off of an initial windfall, not through creating a company/genius idea (the things that people DESERVE to be rich from).

Also, OF COURSE the middle class is as guilty or more of not giving enough back.  Everyone has to spend a fixed number of first few dollars on subsistence needs, then quality education, healthcare, etc before they have enough money to piss away on charity.  This fixed number of dollars is a smaller or even negative percentage of an lower-income individual's salary as compared to a mega-rich individual.  A mega-rich individual spends an infinitesimal % of his/her income on this first and second-level needs, so they have a much higher % of income freed for giving, most of which they hoard, as is human nature.

[🕴🏼Melior🕴🏼]

Billionaires should give enough of their money that they stop being billionaires (or hell, they should limit themselves to 10 million as a maximum). Problem solved.

Being a Billionaire means you have more then a Billion dollars worth of assets. Many of those assets are how they make more money. And you can't donate millions or billions(depending on how many billions one makes) of dollars to charity every year unless you make billions of dollars every year. Plus a certain amount(don't make this a debate about whether the current amount is so much that its harmful, because I really don't care to discuss that question now, and that isn't the point) of investments by rich people are helpful to the economy(as while as occasionally getting projects like asteroid defense systems that could become very important to have but no one wants to fund rn).

Of course, all of this pretends that the middle class isn't just as guilty of not giving enough back.

And most billion-dollar wealth is either inherited or made through compounded interest off of an initial windfall, not through creating a company/genius idea (the things that people DESERVE to be rich from).

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/269593

According to this article, 20% of American billionaires made their money via inheritance and an additional 18% made their money via a combination of inheritance and making their own wealth. 62% of American billionaires are self made (although it's important to note that a majority of these self made billionaires still grew up in relatively privileged circumstances).

[Antonio the Sixth]

Is it so hard to accept that some people might find it inherently immoral to amass more than a certain amount of wealth, regardless of how they amassed it? Has the left abandoned the cultural struggle to the point that this simple idea strikes most people as facially absurd?

I know the answer is yes, and that saddens me to no end.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

Billionaires should give enough of their money that they stop being billionaires (or hell, they should limit themselves to 10 million as a maximum). Problem solved.

Being a Billionaire means you have more then a Billion dollars worth of assets. Many of those assets are how they make more money. And you can't donate millions or billions(depending on how many billions one makes) of dollars to charity every year unless you make billions of dollars every year. Plus a certain amount(don't make this a debate about whether the current amount is so much that its harmful, because I really don't care to discuss that question now, and that isn't the point) of investments by rich people are helpful to the economy(as while as occasionally getting projects like asteroid defense systems that could become very important to have but no one wants to fund rn).

Of course, all of this pretends that the middle class isn't just as guilty of not giving enough back.

Uh, no.  By definition, the investments by rich people are in things that have a return on investment, largely without regard to their social utility.  Sometimes, those things are good, like new pills or something.  Sometimes they are socially deleterious, like putting your stock in mcdonalds or a tobacco company or budweiser or something.

But stuff like asteroid defense systems, massive research projects, dams, etc are by definition things that are too expensive/provide too little/too nebulous an ROI for even one billionaire to fund by themselves.  That's why all of those things (like computers, missiles, hoover dams, etc) start as government-funded research projects.

And it would be a better investment for the government to just take a huge chunk of the billionaire's income and pool it with other tax funds to do those impossibly large-scale, low ROI investment projects.  Or provide quality healthcare and education to jamal and jethro so that, instead of being chronically unhealthy and going to roach-infested sh**tty schools much different than the one you go to, they can have a chance to be the next big inventor/entrepreneur billionaire.

And most billion-dollar wealth is either inherited or made through compounded interest off of an initial windfall, not through creating a company/genius idea (the things that people DESERVE to be rich from).

Also, OF COURSE the middle class is as guilty or more of not giving enough back.  Everyone has to spend a fixed number of first few dollars on subsistence needs, then quality education, healthcare, etc before they have enough money to piss away on charity.  This fixed number of dollars is a smaller or even negative percentage of an lower-income individual's salary as compared to a mega-rich individual.  A mega-rich individual spends an infinitesimal % of his/her income on this first and second-level needs, so they have a much higher % of income freed for giving, most of which they hoard, as is human nature.

The vast majority of investments help companies expand and create new jobs on some level. The problem isn't too much of that, but not enough of other things(feeding people). Sometimes they do invest in damaging institutions, but the best solution to that is tax, which disincentivizes the production of the damaging good while preserving the innovative action of the free market(why this is something important is detailed below). The whole point of this argument originally was that people who have billions in assets aren't uniquely evil. They aren't these inhuman parasites that too many people in this thread paint them as.

Billionaires should give enough of their money that they stop being billionaires (or hell, they should limit themselves to 10 million as a maximum). Problem solved.

Being a Billionaire means you have more then a Billion dollars worth of assets. Many of those assets are how they make more money. And you can't donate millions or billions(depending on how many billions one makes) of dollars to charity every year unless you make billions of dollars every year. Plus a certain amount(don't make this a debate about whether the current amount is so much that its harmful, because I really don't care to discuss that question now, and that isn't the point) of investments by rich people are helpful to the economy(as while as occasionally getting projects like asteroid defense systems that could become very important to have but no one wants to fund rn).

Of course, all of this pretends that the middle class isn't just as guilty of not giving enough back.

This implies that billionaires have a right to decide how that money is invested. I say they don't. They people should decide that, and the profits go back to the people. Private property is not an absolute right.

The most successful of the economically fair states are basically a robust social safety net and welfare state slapped on top of a free market(the heritage foundation rated the three Scandinavian countries with their high taxes and big welfare as at a level of economic freedom almost equal to the US, and probably would have been above the US if government spending(which is a stupid measure of free markets) wasn't a factor).

Private property rights allow rewards for innovating and working hard, and that makes people do it. Most people need a reward to work hard. The free market is good at allocating resources, as long as you add things like piguvian taxes to account for social cost. The only thing it doesn't do well is ensure everyone gets a decent standard of living. A welfare state is the solution. It prevents poverty while still allowing incentives for people to innovate.

PS. a large group of people(note that large groups of individuals are subject to groupthink by human nature and thus typically act much less inteligently as a unit then the groups members would individually) who aren't specialized in picking out good investments aren't going to choose investments as well as a person who's current livelihood is reliant on making good investments.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Private property rights might be efficient on utilitarian grounds (I'm not convinced of that, but I'm willing to admit that it's possible). That doesn't make them inherently morally valuable. And as such, the State is perfectly justified in setting limits to property rights, just like it sets proper bounds for other rights.

[RaphaelDLG]

Billionaires should give enough of their money that they stop being billionaires (or hell, they should limit themselves to 10 million as a maximum). Problem solved.

Being a Billionaire means you have more then a Billion dollars worth of assets. Many of those assets are how they make more money. And you can't donate millions or billions(depending on how many billions one makes) of dollars to charity every year unless you make billions of dollars every year. Plus a certain amount(don't make this a debate about whether the current amount is so much that its harmful, because I really don't care to discuss that question now, and that isn't the point) of investments by rich people are helpful to the economy(as while as occasionally getting projects like asteroid defense systems that could become very important to have but no one wants to fund rn).

Of course, all of this pretends that the middle class isn't just as guilty of not giving enough back.

And most billion-dollar wealth is either inherited or made through compounded interest off of an initial windfall, not through creating a company/genius idea (the things that people DESERVE to be rich from).

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/269593

According to this article, 20% of American billionaires made their money via inheritance and an additional 18% made their money via a combination of inheritance and making their own wealth. 62% of American billionaires are self made (although it's important to note that a majority of these self made billionaires still grew up in relatively privileged circumstances).

I'm familiar with that article, and it's flawed, because it doesn't take into account the percentage of the wealth that is from passive investment compounding interest vs from whatever said billionaire creates/does professionally.

So you can create a company that you sell for $200m at 25 and become a billionaire at age 45 simply by putting your money in an extremely passive, extremely low-risk vanguard index fund and sitting on your ass for 20 years.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Most billionaires either got it because of their parents, or because they were ruthless assholes. They're really mostly all HP. Note that I don't think the same about people worth a couple of million.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

Is it so hard to accept that some people might find it inherently immoral to amass more than a certain amount of wealth, regardless of how they amassed it? Has the left abandoned the cultural struggle to the point that this simple idea strikes most people as facially absurd?

I know the answer is yes, and that saddens me to no end.

Well, most people amass wealth through creating giant businesses that employ thousands of people. The idea that some people having more money then average is inherently immoral is absurd.  The only thing that matters is that everyone has the resources to accomplish the things they want. When that's the case, why does income inequality matter enough to require intervention in of itself?

Private property rights might be efficient on utilitarian grounds (I'm not convinced of that, but I'm willing to admit that it's possible). That doesn't make them inherently morally valuable. And as such, the State is perfectly justified in setting limits to property rights, just like it sets proper bounds for other rights.

The value in property rights is destroyed by taking the decision to manage said property and every last shred of profit from it away.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

Most billionaires either got it because of their parents, or because they were ruthless assholes. They're really mostly all HP. Note that I don't think the same about people worth a couple of million.

Yes, those evil billionaires ruthlessly creating businesses that sell popular products well. That googel searchy thing was a really jerkish thing to make

[Cassius]

Most billionaires either got it because of their parents, or because they were ruthless assholes. They're really mostly all HP. Note that I don't think the same about people worth a couple of million.

Why though? I mean, if someone's got a few million to their name, the difference between them and a billionaire is merely one of degree as opposed to one of kind.

[Antonio the Sixth]

It's pretty clear that you start from a moral framework that leads you to this conclusion. This moral framework is obviously terrible, but not very surprising. I guess that's the direction the wind of history seems to be blowing towards, so what can I do?

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

It's pretty clear that you start from a moral framework that leads you to this conclusion. This moral framework is obviously terrible, but not very surprising. I guess that's the direction the wind is blowing towards.

"Income inequality doesn't matter if the very bottom still has enough to be comfortable and happy" is morally awful? I think you need to get your morality detector re-calibrated.

[RaphaelDLG]

It's pretty clear that you start from a moral framework that leads you to this conclusion. This moral framework is obviously terrible, but not very surprising. I guess that's the direction the wind of history seems to be blowing towards, so what can I do?

This man on TV told me that God wants to you be rich, and if you pray hard enough, work hard, and are a righteous person, Jesus will bless you and make you a millionaire.  Conversely, if you are not a millionaire, that is a sign that you are a lazy, unrighteous person who needs to find Jesus.  He had very nice teeth and hair and a nice smile, so I am inclined to believe him.

[Antonio the Sixth]

It's pretty clear that you start from a moral framework that leads you to this conclusion. This moral framework is obviously terrible, but not very surprising. I guess that's the direction the wind is blowing towards.

"Income inequality doesn't matter if the very bottom still has enough to be comfortable and happy" is morally awful? I think you need to get your morality detector re-calibrated.

Yes, I believe that extreme inequality is wrong in and of itself. Deal with it.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

It's pretty clear that you start from a moral framework that leads you to this conclusion. This moral framework is obviously terrible, but not very surprising. I guess that's the direction the wind is blowing towards.

"Income inequality doesn't matter if the very bottom still has enough to be comfortable and happy" is morally awful? I think you need to get your morality detector re-calibrated.

Yes, I believe that extreme inequality is wrong in and of itself. Deal with it.

I mean, after a certain point(about $100,000 IIRC), more money doesn't even make one more happy. Not to mention that tearing people down just because they're higher then everyone else is a pretty barbaric impulse.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I mean, after a certain point(about $100,000 IIRC), more money doesn't even make one more happy.

That's a very good argument in favor of my position, yes. Thanks.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

I mean, after a certain point(about $100,000 IIRC), more money doesn't even make one more happy.

That's a very good argument in favor of my position, yes. Thanks.

No, it isn't. It means that after everyone reaches the point(which likely shifts depending on the strength of the welfare state), redistribution does nothing to help people and really only serves to tear people down for daring to be wealthier then average. Plus, strong reduction in wealth tends to make one less happy via not having many of the things one is used to even if one falls to above the point.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I mean, after a certain point(about $100,000 IIRC), more money doesn't even make one more happy.

That's a very good argument in favor of my position, yes. Thanks.

No, it isn't. It means that after everyone reaches the point(which likely shifts depending on the strength of the welfare state), redistribution does nothing to help people and really only serves to tear people down for daring to be wealthier then average. Plus, strong reduction in wealth tends to make one less happy via not having many of the things one is used to even if one falls to above the point.

...so you're saying that the few millions taken from the billionaire are more important to their happiness than an additional $50k would be to a middle-income earner? lol

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

I mean, after a certain point(about $100,000 IIRC), more money doesn't even make one more happy.

That's a very good argument in favor of my position, yes. Thanks.

No, it isn't. It means that after everyone reaches the point(which likely shifts depending on the strength of the welfare state), redistribution does nothing to help people and really only serves to tear people down for daring to be wealthier then average. Plus, strong reduction in wealth tends to make one less happy via not having many of the things one is used to even if one falls to above the point.

...so you're saying that the billionaire's second billion is more important to their happiness than an additional $50k would be to a middle-income earner? lol

...

No, the point is that losing enough money to force you to live without things that you're used to is bad for your happiness, Einstein. People do badly with less then they're used to in general.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I mean, after a certain point(about $100,000 IIRC), more money doesn't even make one more happy.

That's a very good argument in favor of my position, yes. Thanks.

No, it isn't. It means that after everyone reaches the point(which likely shifts depending on the strength of the welfare state), redistribution does nothing to help people and really only serves to tear people down for daring to be wealthier then average. Plus, strong reduction in wealth tends to make one less happy via not having many of the things one is used to even if one falls to above the point.

...so you're saying that the billionaire's second billion is more important to their happiness than an additional $50k would be to a middle-income earner? lol

...

No, the point is that losing enough money to force you to live without things that you're used to is bad for your happiness, Einstein. People do badly with less then they're used to in general.

What I said is the exact practical implication of what you just said. You're saying that taking away the billionaire's billions makes a greater difference in their happiness than redistributing that money to people who aren't billionaires (and who therefore start up with a lot less). I don't care what kind of pseudo-psychological bullsh*t you are using to back up this theory, it should be obviously disgusting to anyone with a basic sense of justice. I find it amazing that you even have the ability to feel sorry for those poor billionaires while being so dismissive about the struggles of people who aren't and who have to live in the real world where money actually matters.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I don't care why you have it but ffs Scarlet change your avatar to something more fitting to your disgusting plutocrat-shilling tendencies (yellow works very well).

Um, omega scarlet just seems to be reacting to extreme hyperbole here (comparing billionaires to serial killers).  Hardly seems like "plutocrat shilling" to me to simply point out the fact that such comparisons are hardly fair and there are indeed, genuine societal contributions that the rich make. 

I think you and others completely missed the point of that comparison. Saying that two things are bad =/= saying that they're equally bad. The point is that this silly idea that billionaire is a group that deserves to be respected as if it were a racial group or sexual orientation is grotesque, and that if you seriously want to apply to billionaires then why not apply it to serial killers too?

Also, for those of us who believe that no one has the right to earn that much money, then by definition billionaires don't "contribute" anything, since they take from society more than the are allowed to.

That doesn't follow. What would follow is that they are also contributing in ways and amounts that they aren't allowed to, and that they shouldn't have been investing their wealth in one or another enterprise. There isn't some giant pile of money that is held in static amount by society that people come in and grab. 

[Antonio the Sixth]

I don't care why you have it but ffs Scarlet change your avatar to something more fitting to your disgusting plutocrat-shilling tendencies (yellow works very well).

Um, omega scarlet just seems to be reacting to extreme hyperbole here (comparing billionaires to serial killers).  Hardly seems like "plutocrat shilling" to me to simply point out the fact that such comparisons are hardly fair and there are indeed, genuine societal contributions that the rich make. 

I think you and others completely missed the point of that comparison. Saying that two things are bad =/= saying that they're equally bad. The point is that this silly idea that billionaire is a group that deserves to be respected as if it were a racial group or sexual orientation is grotesque, and that if you seriously want to apply to billionaires then why not apply it to serial killers too?

Also, for those of us who believe that no one has the right to earn that much money, then by definition billionaires don't "contribute" anything, since they take from society more than the are allowed to.

That doesn't follow. What would follow is that they are also contributing in ways and amounts that they aren't allowed to, and that they shouldn't have been investing their wealth in one or another enterprise. There isn't some giant pile of money that is held in static amount by society that people come in and grab. 

"Contributing" implies that the money belonged to them to begin with. It implies that they are the "rightful" owner of that money and therefore that their decision to invest it in socially useful ways is a "contribution". I disagree. I believe that people have no rightful claim to that money and that therefore whatever use they make of it is an abuse. You can't "contribute" if the money you use to "contribute" was never yours to begin with. Even if some of the scraps of their (self-interested) investment decisions end up benefiting society, they are still net "takers".

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I'm very glad I made this a thread.

Fwiw the weirdest moment was completely ignored:' Cassius saying his favourite billionaire is Carlos Slim, lol.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Without Economic Freedom , people wont have political freedom.