No one truly knows the way forward, just that where we are is a bad place. Someday, the framers of our time will have to figure something out. Hopefully they will hear us, and take the best ideas for that something.
Anyhow, I think we should outright create an artificial economic system. Our problems come from inherited wealth, stratified institutions, and rube-goldberg solutions to corruption and inequality.
I think that one replacement that would be gamechanging, would be to make getting an education into a paid job. The state and federal government pays students for their grades. If this income is sufficient, a student can focus solely on learning, instead of accruing debt and being distracted by part-time work. We get more people getting their learning completed, thus entering the job market with the ability needed.
Of course, we would have to address more issues. Such as ghost jobs, unreasonable hiring standards, decentivizing companies from replacing veteran workers with greenhorns for fiscal reasons, and so forth. We simultaneously have too many and too few job seekers, due to perverse incentives.
I think it isn’t companies that should be involved with hiring, instead they should send a request for a worker to the government, who posts the position with standardized requirements and reviews whether prospective employees have the required credentials. The government also tracks whether or not a job position is going unfilled by the company, and starts penalizing the corporation if a posted position consistently needs filling, employees churning, and so forth. This might help with the ghost job issue, and address issues of unfairness.
And yet it isn’t enough, they still want more more more.
Soon a single person will have as much as the bottom 50% and it still won’t be enough
when will it be enough that we stop this?
Net wealth MIST be capped. Taxes could be a great tool for this, after a max level, everything above goes 100% to taxes. I don’t know at what level that cap should be, but it’s definitely less than billion, definitely less than 100 million, definitely less than 25 million.
There is no right to a crazy high net worth, and the only reason that people can is because we don’t cap it. So, cap it. World wide. There is no reason to have a netwoth of over 25 million. Have it all go to taxes so that governments get a huge monetary boost that can be used for free healthcare, free education, free infrastructure, hell, maybe even universal income
With that we also take the power away. No longer will we have to deal with absolute lucky idiots like Sam Altman or Elmo Musk whose sole reasons for being this shit ass rich are being lucky and a loooong list of lies.
But then we’d get back to authoritarian society where some random representative would have resources to usurp. Taxes will solve nothing. No, we’ve got to dismantle the whole concept of superpowers, accumulation, and capitalism. We have enough just to feed everyone and educate all who want to be educated.
But then we’d get back to authoritarian society where some random representative would have resources to usurp.
How does that follow yet dismantling all current systems wouldn’t cause the same problem?
The answer is taxes. It’s simple and effective without any revolution that would likely result in an authoritarian regime. It’s a lack of taxes which allows authoritarians to flourish because the money they centralize is power. Distribute the money and you distribute the power.
“Someday I’ll be one of those 8”
Those dumb cunts ruining my life and I hate it
trickle down economics. amirite?
You mean waking up in the morning being scared nr 9 will overtake you?
If that happens then they’ll have to sell all their cars with gullwing/scissor doors and buy a car with regular doors.
And not one of them can walk down the street in any city he wants at any time.
Prisoners in their own chains.
Nor their kids.
It’s tragi comic.
Financial obesity is an existential threat to any society that tolerates it, and needs to cease being celebrated, rewarded, and positioned as an aspirational goal.
Corporations are the only ‘persons’ which should be subjected to capital punishment, but billionaires should be euthanised through taxation.
In deed. At some point, say 100 million for arguments sake. Once you accumulate that much wealth, you are taxed at 100%. You may not own, or make, anything above that number through any means. Forced retirement would also be something to think about. Giving younger generations a chance to make a life for themselves as well.
Society as a whole, would flourish.
🌎 I vote BennyBoy for President! 🇺🇸
User name checks out ;)
Calling it “financial obesity” makes it sound innocuous or even good. Wealth hoarding is treason.
This is either slop from a refried prompt, or an act of Olympic calibre mental gymnastics.
Obesity is always a threat to the health of any system where the term is invoked. Its tolerance and normalisation is functionally suicidal.
You deserve the exact same fate as the billionaires in this comic.
“You say that obesity is unhealthy, so you deserve to be guillotined”
What the fuck
Like, how is stating that, whether false or true, anywhere on the level of systematically exploiting and ruining people at numbers these words will never reach? How are such words alone justification enough for murder?
Killing should never be done or advocated for lightly, if at all. Life is the most fundamental human right.
The human vampire dragons of the comic walk on corpses and broken lives and still can’t hoard enough. I’ll permit an argument that the scale at which they tread even the most fundamental rights of others forfeits their own fundamental rights.
But saying a few words is nowhere near the same level of travesty. We can argue whether they hurt the dignity of others (I don’t think they do) or are untrue (I don’t think they are), but to justify killing for them is unhinged. Please get your moral compass checked.
Calling it “financial obesity” makes it sound innocuous or even good. Wealth hoarding is treason.
So is obesity, to the body. It’s the perfect metaphor if people ignore it as innocuous.
There is nothing wrong with being fat. Saying that wealth hoarding is like being fat is calling it normal and good, even if one is too stupid to understand that simple fact.
Obesity isn’t just being chubby. It’s a morbid condition detrimental to joints, spine, liver, heart and other comorbidities. It places a strain both on healthcare systems and on accommodation efforts. It’s in everyone’s interest, including the patient’s, to remedy that issue and help them attain a less unhealthy weight.
You are right that the condition alone doesn’t diminish the worth of the afflicted as people. What makes the financial obesity of our comparison so despicable is that it stems from ravenous gluttony at the expense of others. I could see a point that this qualifier should be spelled out, even though I think it’s implicity clear to most participants from the general context of the discussion.
But obesity as a condition is neither normal nor good, neither for the patient nor for the system obliged to accommodate them.
Being obese is not shameful but it is not okay and should be adressed
You’re fat, aren’t you? That’s why you think there’s nothing wrong with blocking all your arteries & suffocating all your internal organs, because it happened so slowly that you’ve become accustomed to it. And you can’t stop eating because you’re insatiable.
Like insatiable billionaires hoarding wealth.
But don’t get confused now, because fatness is not wealth. Fatness is the opposite of wealth. Working hard to eat nutritiously & moderately & getting plenty of daily exercise for a fit hard body that looks great naked is the corporeal manifestation of wealth.
There is a difference between fat and obese.
I don’t care about the heads.
I just want to repurpose the assets.
It’s symbolic.
For those interested in more recent numbers, here is the latest Forbes top ten list: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeswealthteam/article/the-top-ten-richest-people-in-the-world/
“Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.” - Benito Mussolini
A private equity business owner just became willingly elected as prime minister of Canada. Mussolini and Hitler have been resurrected.
Only because the beady-eyed weaselly fuck on the other side is worse.
Eight? Then there are five people missing from that stage.
The world’s wealthiest eight men control net wealth of $426 billion, based on estimates from Forbes.
Took me until this sentence to realize this article was from 2017. Muskrat is getting close to that all by himself - I saw something the other day that had him around $350 billion.
I’m sure the numbers are much much worse than they were 8 years ago.
Elon musk has between $470B-$500B to his name, according to bloomberg and forbes. That would make him richer than the world’s wealthiest 8 men in 2017.
I am totally on board this is my pre face.
That is not cash though. That is accumulated paper assets. I know people with million dollar net worths on paper that are broke in reality. As in unable to pay their bills. Assets and liquidity are separate things.
While I understand the point of rampant enshittification and capitalism, I thought that needs some clarity.
Can’t those assets be sold for theoretically the amount of money they’re worth?
This list doesn’t include hidden wealth does it? Like Putin for example.
Top 3 today are just shy of 1 trillion dollars…
Hasn’t the USD also decreased in value since then? Actually a good way to “make more billionaires”
Yes. Yes they are.
If something like this ever did happen IRL, the vast majority of the world would cheer.
I mean, one got shot and killed, and there was celebration.
And the guy wasn’t even anywhere near being a billionaire.
Let’s end capitalism!! Let’s go socialism!!!
No.
Dude, take the capitalist boot off your neck
I’m okay with stopping capitalism, but not to put a communist boot on my neck.
I’m up for socio democracy, but old time socialisms end goal is just like communism.
Can you please define communism for me?
… They’re all in one room?
A guillotine is unnecessarily complicated.
… and also too humane.
#8 Michael Bloomberg: $40 billion
#7 Larry Ellison: $43.6 billion
#6 Mark Zuckerberg: $44.6 billion
#5 Jeff Bezos: $45.2 billion
#4 Carlos Slim Helu: $50 billion
#3 Warren Buffett: $60.8 billion
#2 Amancio Ortega: $67 billion
#1 Bill Gates: $75 billion
I don’t even buy these are the richest men bc I’m sure the richest men in the world would: A. never be named in a magazine list like this without suing, B. Likely have more wealth and assets that are unreported than they do reported. Also, didn’t Peter Thiel recently become a trillionaire?
Regardless, I do just want to point out what most of the richest men in the world have in common, is a strong belief in natural heirarchies and social darwinism.
This list is supposed to exemplify survival of the fittest, or those “chosen by God” to rule over the rest of us…? I can’t even imagine how sickly the men on the real list would look.
The masses wouldn’t be able to function without them guiding the way and making the rules…
Does this look like a list of men put together by God or nature? As in, survival of the fittest rules where nature allowed this or God considered every human being on earth before selecting who he ordained worthy of steering the reigns of society, and this list was the final result?
#1 Bill Gates: $75 billion
musk just reached 500B - is this list from the 90s?
It seems to leave out autocratic leaders of countries with equivalent wealth and greater power, such as Prince Bonesaw and Vlad Putler.
Also, both allegedly religious men presumably chosen by God to lead their people. Sawing people apart or poisoning their tea when they speak against you is just God’s will.
I guess when the argument is convenient, it pivots to their brute strength and willingness to do things most people find unspeakable being what allowed them to gain/maintain power. Putin at least got his his hands dirty for the KGB before he came into power, and grew up poor. But, if it came down to him actually maintaining power in a battle that relied only on brute strength would he actually be the victor?
I kinda doubt he or the Saudi royal prince would last 5 minutes if either had to face the general public, in order to defend their titles, without intervention of loyalists rushing to protect and defend them.
I wonder how much the loon that runs Turkmenistan has just in gold toilets?
Ortega, Blomberg, Ellison, Slim and Buffett are all going to croak within 20 years and I’m being very generous there. They are all in their 80’s.
That leaves Zuckass, Bezos, and Gates. Bezos has a good 40 years left and Gates 30 years…again being generous by hitting 100 years old. That leaves us with the one and only Zuckass. All hail the ruler!
