Opinion of billionaires

[RINO Tom]

I have no reason to dislike them.  I should note that, while I don't think I know any billionaires, almost everyone I know comes from a very well-off family (not the kind that fly in private jets, but the kind that don't worry about spending $75 per person at a nice dinner every now and then).

Spending $75/person out of pocket. Geez. Like those places exist for companies to pay for it. Geez...that sounds like something I'd do once a decade.

I've eaten at Alinea twice.

My family will eat reasonably often at places like Ruth's Chris, Flemings, and The Capital Grille (or local steakhouses).  We usually prefer nice steakhouses to gourmet restaurants.  Actually, I wonder if the steakhouse-gourmet restaurant divide is the conservative-liberal divide among people with high earnings.

ESPECIALLY among people with higher earnings, those ridiculous divides don't exist when it comes to things like FOOD, LOL.

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

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).

You're a fucked up person if you thing "Having lots of money doesn't automatically make you literally evil" is a disgusting statement.

[RFayette]

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.

As an aside, this is the first thread in which I've agreed with Omegascarlet in a long time, so props to her on that.

[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.

[Figueira]

God, this thread is terrible.

HP.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Just saying that, if this thread were about any other group, it would have been locked hours ago.  I would disagree with that and think this should be left open.  But, please note the double standard!

[Antonio the Sixth]

Just saying that, if this thread were about any other group, it would have been locked hours ago.  I would disagree with that and think this should be left open.  But, please note the double standard!

NOT ALL "GROUPS" ARE EQUAL FFS

[Cassius]

Obviously a very diverse group of people. Have a moderately favourable opinion of some (Carlos Slil, Carl Icahn etc), not a fan of others (Mark Zuckerberg and the Koch Brothers among them). I certainly don't consider them to be 'immoral' for amassing (or inheriting) such large amounts of wealth, given that I myself can never say no to more money (given that I have very little of it in the grand scheme of things). On the other hand I'm not a fan of Trump-like conspicuous consumption, nor am I a fan of billionaires who use their position as a pulpit from which to pontificate about 'morality', 'justice', 'values' and all that bollocks (in the same way that I'm no fan of journalists, thespians and academics who do the same). But neither of those things can really be helped. I'm not sure how much they benefit society as a whole (probably do some good and some bad), but as I will shortly be entering the black hole of financial services I feel I stand to benefit more from them (and 'very rich people' generally) being around than not.

[All Along The Watchtower]

No one should be worth a billion dollars, regardless of how much they "worked" for it (because let's be real, these people are rent-seekers who don't create wealth so much as steal redistribute it from the commons via their alarming ability to influence changes in tax policy to their own benefit, along with  deregulation, union-busting, the reduction of social welfare spending, the underpayment payment of workers, etc. - is it any coincidence that the number and wealth of billionaires around the world has dramatically increased since the (neo) liberalization of the economy and at the same time as the unprecedented explosion of economic inequality accompanied by declining social mobility?). If that makes me a Commie or whatever then so be it.

[Figueira]

Just saying that, if this thread were about any other group, it would have been locked hours ago.  I would disagree with that and think this should be left open.  But, please note the double standard!

Billionaires are people who are actively choosing to have all that money. Now, it's fine to have a healthy economic debate about whether or not this is a good thing to do, but it's absurd to say that saying billionaires are bad people is "bigoted" or that criticism of them is equivalent to attacks on LGBT people, women, minorities, poor people, etc.

[SWE]

Jesus Christ, are we seriously discussing "billionaire" as if it were a vulnerable identity?

Poor babies

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Can we just talk about how back on the first page Scarlet implied that the only two options a person making a lot of money has are to hoard it, become richer than some countries, make tombs more splendid than the houses of the living, et cetera, or else to give it all away at once?

[RINO Tom]

Huey Long would be proud of this thread.

[White Trash]

Huey Long would be proud of this thread.

Huey's approval is all I've ever wanted.

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

Prejudice is prejudice, no matter who its towards. Dehumanization of a group of people based on trait or identity is always deplorable. These claims about "billionaires are always evil/always do evil things to get to where they are" are flat-out untrue, and frankly, set off the same alarm bells in my head that goes off on hate speech against other demonized groups that the left agrees shouldn't be demonized. Before this thread, I never would have said that bigotry against rich people is a thing to care about, but seeing the vile hate spewed against people just because they're rich has horrified me. I've realized that the evil of bigotry isn't simply about attacks on disadvantaged groups, but about the denial of dignity, of basic humanity to people because of a trait unrelated to who they are. Is Larry Page, that awkward, nerdy kid who knows how to program, really evil because his idea for this search engine to make the internet more helpful to humanity made him billions of dollars, which he then spent developing ideas he felt would make the world a better place? No. This rhetoric doesn't hurt him as much as similar attacks hurt Trayvon Martin, but its still an attack on the basic dignity of a human being.

Can we just talk about how back on the first page Scarlet implied that the only two options a person making a lot of money has are to hoard it, become richer than some countries, make tombs more splendid than the houses of the living, et cetera, or else to give it all away at once?

Read the post again.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The rather obvious logical conclusion of this part of the post was that people should give some of their money but not enough that they can't make more, make more money, give enough of that new money but not so much that they can't make more, etc. After all, how else would not giving everything at once lead to more donations

[Antonio the Sixth]

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.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

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.

Lol, if I don't have more than $10 million by the time I die, I'd rather just be dead now.

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

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.

Why 10M?

[Antonio the Sixth]

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.

Why 10M?

Well, I guess ideally it would be less than that, but we're only human, and that's a good start.

[Goldwater]

It's threads like this that remind me I'm more right-wing than the Trumpublicans make me seem.

[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.

Why 10M?

Well, I guess ideally it would be less than that, but we're only human, and that's a good start.

10 million would mean you'd be worth a hundred average yearly incomes in an super-wealthy country like Luxembourg.  Should be enough for any sane person.

I personally don't actually believe in income caps on principle, though - just very steep progressive taxation.

[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.

[Antonio the Sixth]

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.

Why 10M?

Well, I guess ideally it would be less than that, but we're only human, and that's a good start.

10 million would mean you'd be worth a hundred average yearly incomes in an super-wealthy country like Luxembourg.  Should be enough for any sane person.

I personally don't actually believe in income caps on principle, though - just very steep progressive taxation.

Well, that 10 million figure was about wealth, not incomes.

In terms of income, yes, just tax most of what comes after 100K and basically everythingything over a million.

[Antonio the Sixth]

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.

[All Along The Watchtower]

LEAVE BILLIONAIRES ALONE