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Andrea Junker :verified:

Wealth of Elon Musk
2012: $2,000,000,000
2024: $211,300,000,000

Wealth of Jeff Bezos
2012: $18,400,000,000
2024: $204,900,000,000

Wealth of Mark Zuckerberg
2012: $17,500,000,000
2024: $178,400,000,000

Federal Minimum Wage
2012: $7.25
2024: $7.25

Three words: tax the rich.

47 comments
Petit Suisse

@Strandjunker

Tax the rich but we need transparent use of that taxation. Seeing how bad govs are at not taxing them, imagine when they actually do.

Also, it shouldn't be allowed to reach that crazy amount of wealth.

Profoundly Nerdy

@Strandjunker Why and for what purpose? What would the final result look like?

Alexander Hamizdat

@profoundlynerdy let me ask you something.

What's more valuable, human rights or property rights?

Profoundly Nerdy

@alexhammy Before I answer, may I ask how one is at odds with the other?

Alexander Hamizdat

@profoundlynerdy "I don't acknowledge a difference between the two" is totally a valid answer

Harbinger of Salem

@profoundlynerdy @alexhammy

Capitalism creates artificial stratification that corrupts democracies and republics; enabling batshit insane policies like money is speech and lies are protected speech. Human rights such as home ownership, decent medical care, decent employment and freedom from corporate sociopaths are self evidently more important than the right of wealth dragons to pile unlimited hoarda and indeed are self evidently so.

The counter question is which property right except home ownership could possibly counter any human right whatsoever?

@profoundlynerdy @alexhammy

Capitalism creates artificial stratification that corrupts democracies and republics; enabling batshit insane policies like money is speech and lies are protected speech. Human rights such as home ownership, decent medical care, decent employment and freedom from corporate sociopaths are self evidently more important than the right of wealth dragons to pile unlimited hoarda and indeed are self evidently so.

Alexander Hamizdat

@HarbingerOfSalem @profoundlynerdy if I own a piece a bread and someone who is at the brink of death from starvation steals it from me, were my rights violated or do I have a right to hoard bread at all?

Harbinger of Salem

@alexhammy @profoundlynerdy

Unless the theft harms equally starving children likely as not.

Alexander Hamizdat

@HarbingerOfSalem @profoundlynerdy I would say if kids are also starving all around me I definitely don't have a right to hoard bread.

Samvega

@profoundlynerdy @Strandjunker The final result is always going to be - at some point - that humans (as a group) stop existing, for one or more of many possible reasons. While we wait for that to happen, we can tend to a) maximise happiness or b) exploit the many to enrich the few. I'm tired of b), I'd like to try a), that's all.

Persephone

@Strandjunker@mstdn.social if those three people alone had paid 20% tax on what they gained there, the US government could cover most of what they spend on "Education, Training, Employment, and Social Services"

I make 20% of the difference $111.34 Billion.
According to https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/#spending-categories they spend $141 Billion on education.

Three fucking people. Never mind the rest. Three people paying an extra 20% tax and most of the education budget is paid for.

@Strandjunker@mstdn.social if those three people alone had paid 20% tax on what they gained there, the US government could cover most of what they spend on "Education, Training, Employment, and Social Services"

I make 20% of the difference $111.34 Billion.
According to https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/#spending-categories they spend $141 Billion on education.

Three fucking people. Never mind the rest. Three people paying an extra 20% tax and most of the education...

Philip Cardella

@Strandjunker I'd say prosecute the rich for wage theft AND tax whoever remains.

enoch_exe_inc

@Strandjunker
2021
Total wealth of all billionaires in:
• Mainland China: $2531.9 billion
• Hong Kong: $448.2 billion
• Macau: $3.1 billion
• Total: $2983.2 billion

2024
Total wealth of all billionaires in:
• Mainland China: $1335.6 billion
• Hong Kong: $329.7 billion
• Macau: None (no billionaires)
• Total: $1665.3 billion

Data acquired from Forbes lists of billionaires by summing up all the billionaires in China (excluding Taiwan).

@Strandjunker
2021
Total wealth of all billionaires in:
• Mainland China: $2531.9 billion
• Hong Kong: $448.2 billion
• Macau: $3.1 billion
• Total: $2983.2 billion

2024
Total wealth of all billionaires in:
• Mainland China: $1335.6 billion
• Hong Kong: $329.7 billion
• Macau: None (no billionaires)
• Total: $1665.3 billion

enoch_exe_inc

@Strandjunker In other words, they don’t call it ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’ for nothing. Also, it helps that billionaires are not immune from prosecution for things like corruption.

Pete

@Strandjunker St. Ronnie would be proud. Society wasn’t perfect before 1980, but foundations were (mostly) in place for equity and justice.

chompy lee lee garue

@Strandjunker a long time ago, in a bar bathroom in Pindale WY, “kill the rich” was scratched on the wall. Now the majority of WY voters would give their dying breath to provide these three sociopathic bums with zero tax burden?

Tino

@Strandjunker - I agree, and to support basic general income

PetterOfCats

@Strandjunker you misspelled “eat”.

nexovec

@Strandjunker I wonder if you intentionally included minimum wage instead of net worth to mislead.

NovaCora 🐻‍❄️🐻‍❄️🐻‍❄️

@Strandjunker The goal is to prevent of billionaires from being created, even if the rich was taxed, the problem still stands that their income comes from the exploitation of the wage worker.

The Mïghty Kräcken

@Strandjunker
Also, raise minimum wage. Not to $8, or $15 ... raise it to match thirty years of inflation. That should be about $30 by now.

Woo

@Strandjunker I'm happy to compromise. Only tax the exceedingly rich.

Janis (she/her)

@Strandjunker I'm pretty sure most of us are on board with that, the question is how. The US's highest paying *job* is "tax lawyer."

We need to be looking closer at Ireland.

MacCruiskeen

@Strandjunker I suppose we can give them a choice of taxes or a submersible trip to see the Titanic.

Darth Moomin

@Strandjunker I’m feeling hungry, how bout y’all?

gentrifiedrose

@Strandjunker We post this like a psychopath is going to understand

floydgump

@Strandjunker Hell they would even miss it unless they count every penny of it.Miserly B*****rds

GlennMG

@Strandjunker
George Bernard Shaw said something like, "The more I learn of the wealthy classes, the more I understand the guillotine."

Bootless Buck

@Strandjunker The wealth of these people is a function of the holdings in the companies they founded. Tax the company. Taxing an individual's unrealized gains is a slippery slope.

𝗖 𝗔 𝗧

@Strandjunker

Three better words than "tax the rich" are "overthrow the bourgeoisie."

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