Their $10s of billions is not a vault full of gold coins in their basement, like Scrooge McDuck has. It represents companies and investments that are creating jobs and wealth for lots of people, probably many of the people who post here owe their job to a billionaire. Those things would not exist if "net worth" were somehow capped at $100m.
> Those things would not exist if "net worth" were somehow capped at $100m.
Of course they would, and the world would likely be a much better place for it. Those companies you speak of are mega-corporations that tend to operate outside the laws we all get to follow, and typically result in monopolies or oligopolies.
There are VERY few industries that NEED a company worth hundreds of billions of dollars to operate. In almost all cases you’d be better off with hundreds of companies worth hundreds of millions competing for your business.
Sure they would. The companies would just have to have different ownership models that incentivized more distributed ownership between more people. If we somehow said that no one could own more than $100 million of a company, then for every person who has $1 billion of a company now, there would be 10 people with $100 million instead. This would be a net benefit to society.
They would be the same 10 people all owning shares of each other's companies if you said one person couldn't own more than x of a company.
Where do all these other people who have the money to own all these shares come from? If they existed they'd be buying the shares right now, and probably own them. You hand wave that this would be a net benefit to society but don't say how, or even demonstrate an understanding of how any of this works.
This is all a misunderstanding of power, where it lies, how it works. We imagine the government has power and we can democratically change the fabric of reality, will our desire into existence with no blowback or fallout. The people that own these companies, they cannot be stopped. They exist because they have to exist, they emerge naturally. Someone always holds all the cards. If you try to pass laws to stop it they'll just hide it from you and do it anyway.
> There’s a very large chasm between being successful, and having $10s of billions of dollars in net worth.
Because of marginal utility, there really isn't such a large chasm. Every additional dollar has less utility than the dollar that preceded it. Capping what producers can earn or use their means/money on is a good way to stifle innovation and productivity. Also, what indication is there that the government won't squander taxes from this in the same way they have squandered taxes from so many other things?
>Also, what indication is there that the government won't squander taxes from this in the same way they have squandered taxes from so many other things?
Everybody in the US likes to talk about the golden age of the 50s. The top marginal tax rate was pushing 90%.
Empirical data answers your question. Trickle down economics has been a provable disaster with the VAST majority of wealth accumulating in the hands of a few.
> Empirical data answers your question. Trickle down economics has been a provable disaster with the VAST majority of wealth accumulating in the hands of a few.
At no point did I mention "trickle down economics". I mentioned innovation and productivity, things that are easily measured. The gap between productivity and wages in the US only widely diverged once going off of hard money. This is because the upper class own assets (largely unaffected by monetary inflation) and the lower/middle class own currency (heavily affected by monetary inflation). If the empirical data you speak of is so evident, please provide some references for it. I don't subscribe to "trickle down economics" so I don't know anything about it.
To be successful enough to be worth hundreds of millions and zip around in private jet, completely oblivious to how normal people lead their lifes ?
Oh tell me what benefit does that have for the rest of the society?
There is basically no thing single human can do that can be worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year to society. It's all skimming off top people that actually put the work in.
Well, maybe if someone cured cancer but we all know that if someone did company hiring him and their CEO would reap most of the profits anyway
What coercive mechanism made people buy JK Rowlings books, and made her a billionaire?
Who did JK Rowling exploit to funnel so much of those book sales towards herself?
If someone buys a Harry Potter book, is she not entitled to a portion of the money?
In winner take all dynamics, like what books parents buy for their kids, a person can easily earn 1000 times more than the average person by doing a similar amount of work.
Above a certain level I could certainly get behind saying no she's not entitled to it. 100% marginal tax rates above $10 million in annual earnings seem perfectly reasonable to me.
That won’t stop her from being a billionaire. She could have ownership of a company that would make her net worth orders of magnitude higher than any earnings cap.
You cannot put a cap on a company’s worth, because it’s a guess.
They can decide to nationalise those companies as well, but then she could take her skills to another country. Then that country loses all of her earnings for sure.
The other way to stop her from being filthy rich would be to make people stop liking her books. Which at this point one should ask how much damage one is willing to do to stop a person from being rich.
Didn't say anything about taking all their money. Just making sure they actually pay the taxes and not avoid that in million ways they have, both for themselves and for their corporations. Majority of government tax income should come from corporate, not individuals.
You say they aren't worth what they get paid, and you assess that how? Don't you think the millions of people paying them know better than you who should be paid for what?
Have you considered the fact that it is you that is paying them for what they bring into your life? Every time you buy a TV, order something on Amazon, go to Walmart, use a card instead of cash, you are paying these people because you like what your money buys you.
> Have you considered the fact that it is you that is paying them for what they bring into your life?
So far they have been mostly stopping what I want to be brought to life. Every time promising game developer gets bought then their games got watered down for mass appeal and ultimately becoming irrelevant.
> Have you considered the fact that it is you that is paying them for what they bring into your life?
That's the problem, there is no other choice! No matter from who you buy it always ends up supporting some billionaire, you can't buy TV from some indie company. The least they can do is pay fucking taxes from that profits. Individual taxes should be not main government income, corporate ones should be.
If they can have privilege of getting profits worked on by whole company the least they can do is to contribute same or more than individuals do to the budget.
Have you considered that some billionaire always gets a cut because theyre an important part of the ecosystem? Why is it you can't find a business stream without a rich guy there? Who do you think pays those construction workers to build the factory before it will ever produce a single dime of revenue?
You talk about billionaires and corporate taxes. You know billionaires are individuals, not corporations, right? And you know that they pay taxes? Also did you know that corporations don't actually make any money, the people that work there and own shares in them get the profit, and pay taxes when they do? At least the rich ones do, the not rich people who own these companies are people like you and me who have 401ks and pay no taxes on our share of the profits these companies generate, and that accounts for most of the ownership in them.
