Because they hope to become one of them
Or at least an “Uncle Tom” who will receive preferential treatment
I’ve heard this a lot. I cannot think of anyone who actually thinks they have a shot at being a billionaire. Maybe a shot at winning the lottery, which is still crazy, but the taxes are predetermined for that so it’s not like they’re going to increase on a winner after they’ve won and already paid. There’s always the steady drumbeat of “taxes are evil” from everyone living in a fantasyland that modern civilized life will continue without them.
IMO it’s more of a fear thing. We’ve been told they’re the “job creators” or whatever (even Musk has only created 100k jobs out of 163 million jobs despite being the richest person in the country). You’re already getting their “preferential treatment” and people are afraid they’ll withdraw their favor, as meager as it is, despite the damage they do to everything else.
Americans are stupid, hateful and willing to shit all over each other if they think they will personally benefit, even if know it is only temporary
Selfishness is baked into what passes for culture in that backwards dump
Its baked into and directly caused by the ethos of rugged independence. It’s in the roots.
I agree completely
That, and the fact that cruelty is celebrated
Like with most things, it’s the minority that messes it up for everyone. In this case there are a large minority that is either indifferent to or actually revels in the suffering of others. They seem to mostly be republican. For them, the cruelty is the point, or else they’re selfish and indifferent, which I believe is indistinguishable.
Nah, the aspiration isn’t so much that people think they could be billionaires, merely that anyone could be. It creates a social bond between the working class and billionaires, it dissolves the identity divide for the working class. Working class people think “they’re hard workers just like me,” while billionaires use their identification as working class to selectively absolve themselves of the responsibility they have.
I was having a chat with a friend recently about the cost of living in the UK. I mentioned one issue is the wealth inequality and billionaires are the problem.
“If we do a wealth tax they’ll leave!”
Sent this link https://equalitytrust.org.uk/evidence-base/billionaire-britain-2025/ to explain how a large proportion of billionaires just extract wealth.
Not entirely sure they were convinced. They have the mentality that billionaires create jobs for everyone and are super hard workers that worked their way up.
I don’t want to just sit back and call people who look up to billionaires idiots. I want to be able to have strong compelling points to make them change their mind.
If you do a wealth tax, they would absolutely leave.
And then what? If they want to take their wealth with them they’d need to sell up, so the job creation would remain, the assets would remain, possibly the currency would be slightly weaker, and so importa would be slightly more expensive, which would encourage the local economy… What is the awful outcomes you’re imagining from the ultra rich leaving?
Good.
How?
They are a menace to society and there existence is an embarrassment.
Does kicking them out of the country cause them to cease to exist?
If everyone does it, yeah. Kinda.
Agreed. Capitalism cannot be brought down without global unity.
I don’t want them here, ideally they would pay a crap ton of taxes or rot in a cell, and stop buying out the legal systems.
Agreed but unfortunately we don’t live in an ideal world
Did you not read the comment you’re responding to? Them leaving would be a good thing dumbass
Explain how, smartass.
Try reading the article linked in the comment you were responding to you fucking moron
The article doesn’t explain how kicking them out would be a good thing you fucking imbecile.
It explains in great mathematical detail how they cost more than they’re worth, fucking duh, learn to read
You can’t blame billionaires for people continuing to think that GDP benefits them.
Not if you have a 38% exit tax like Norway.
Damn! I didn’t know there was actually a solution to the Marxist problem of capital flight!
The obvious solution is to simply not allow the capitalists to take anything but the clothes on their backs as they flee for their wretched lives
Unfortunately that’s not possible unless the state seizes their assets.
Oh nooo…
The last time a country seized the assets of the wealthy, half the world declared war against it. Be careful what you wish for.
Yes, that’s sort of what I was getting at. Historically speaking there’s no good examples of asking capitalists nicely for things being a productive strategy.
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I want a source that says that billionaires would remain in countries even when taxes rise.
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Thanks for the post and references. Good information.
I’m not saying that people would leave to boring states just for tax benefits. I’m saying that people would leave to different countries.
I don’t understand how Norway implements it’s wealth tax.
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Let them.
You can’t tax them at all if they leave. Forget wealth tax, you won’t be getting any taxes.
They can’t leave when their businesses, properties, assets, and income are derived from your country. Much of it isn’t easily movable, if at all. Most of a billionaire’s wealth isn’t in cold hard capital cash, it’s in a mixture of assets and yearly income from said assets.
They can choose to leave, and live wherever they’d like to live. But their place of residence, if legislated properly, would have no bearing on wealth taxes instituted at the asset or income level. If we chose to tax them regardless of being domicile or not: it is a legislative choice.
It would have no bearing on whether we can still legally and feasibly tax the fuck out of them.
What you’re saying is disinformation, friend. It serves the wealth class well when it’s spread around. But if you stop and think about it as an idea for a second it quickly falls apart.
Nope. Most of a billionaire’s wealth is in the form of stocks. This is true of any billionaire.
Stocks are financial assets.
Stocks don’t even require moving afaik
Which is good, as they would then not be extracting wealth from where they left and money can once again circulate how it should.
Lol billionaires extract wealth from every single nation.
Then maybe we should tax the fuck out of them across the board.
Good luck convincing all countries. (Most countries are class traitors)
Brainwashed, mentally ill, non critical thinker.
Pick one.
Don’t forget bot. Bots are cheap. Billionaires can pay for lots of them
Non critical thinker as bots and sockpuppets don’t think.
Wanted come write this too. And to add people who feel peer pressured by said bots
Which one of these is a bot account or a fishing email?
I’m fine with fishing emails. Phishing ones are the problematic ones.
😛
Some people have the mindset - “If we take money away from billionaires now, then I’ll have less money when I become a billionaire in the future!”
Americans aren’t Labor, they are temporarily embarrassed Capital.
Don’t hate them for it, because they never made a conscious decision to do it. It may be incredibly frustrating that some people are sabotaging everyone else like this, but it’s not really their fault. They’ve simply been raised in a rotten society and brainwashed so hard their brains are literally fried.
Those of us who happened to avoid a similar fate are not necessarily better. Probably just lucky.
There are some people who are just wired to submit, and there are a lot more of them than you would think. I don’t know how to explain it, but I know some otherwise really awesome people, smart in most ways, but happily submit themselves to authority time and time again; despite it burning them over and over.
I think I’m more productive when I have someone else doing the executive thinking and “just” assigning me “simple” tasks.
But, I can still recognize Rentiers as bad for the economy in specific and society in general.
That really interesting, honestly. I’m the kind who likes to break down task, figure out things, and I get really resentful when I’m given simple tasks without the context to understand them.
I don’t think what you are describing is what I mean though. I totally get having things broken down and simplified, especially in the context of productivity. That just seems like you understand yourself and workflow.
I’m taking more about an authoritarian mindset in values. I can tell based on the rest of your reply that you haven’t outsourced your judgement :)
Yeah, I guess isn’t not really about simple vs. complex for me, I don’t mind having to research, break down, or even delegate; but I want to clear goal. “Improve the login flow” is a task I hate, and probably won’t do well or fast. “Allow Yubikey as an alternative to Google Authenticator for our 2FA” is something I can knock out, even if I’m totally new to the code base (and I’ve not yet ever used the Google Authenticator API or a Yubikey).
I know metrics make for poor goals (Goodhart’s Law) but I like a task that is metric-driven. I do tend to be careful to not be overly fixated on the metric and rather the improvement it’s meant to reflect.
Gotcha. Yeah, you and me both then, I feel exactly the same way. “Improved login” is such an undefined and wide space to begin with. Something like that is what a low executive function brain would ask for.
I’d say, you operate at a higher level, sounds to me like you are very good at executive level thinking. You see the problem space for what it is, and undefined is an awful place to be, since there is so many avenues that would fulfill the “request”. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to walk people through how to provide useful requirements :)
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It is, it’s a weird mental wall that you hit time and time again with these people.
Keep asking the why, and eventually they shut down. Once they get to where they need to think critically you can just see the brain turn off behind their eyes. It’s baffling.
Some people are more predisposed to value order and stability, which I get it. Life is ultimately rudderless and has no direction. It brings an existential dread for many to think that we are all ultimately free individuals. As Albert Camus puts it: we are condemned to be free. Some people have a stronger fleeting and listless feeling, and fear of the unknown-- but it is the endless possibilities of choices leading to the unknown results that they actually dread. So, I think some people want assurances; and they think they could get it from following an authority figure. This stems from our pre-historic evolutionary past that if you are not a leader type and either/or not part of a group, it could reduce your chances of survival.
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I think in some cases, daddy issues play a part in it. I know a few guys who clearly found a substitute for their lacklustre fathers in strongman figures, be they CEOs or grifters. Having a figure like this to fall into line with does seem to make them feel more secure in themselves.
I don’t know a huge amount of those, but I do know a lot of men who had solid fathers who were there for them and listened as much as they spoke. They were attentive, caring and solid parents. None of those kids grew up to feel personally threatened when their favourite billionaire, CEO or social media grifter is critiqued or shown for what they are.
I think billionaires and corporations spend good money to have people comment favorably about them. Eventually, via osmosis, those opinions percolate into some of the general public and they start spewing the same lines
alot of propaganda, especially how movies and shows glorify being rich, plus als in irl, its a plus if worship white ones.
I’m here to discuss the original image. Is Jesus shooting America at a sinner? Who is the baby?
He’s shooting France at someone.
It’s baby Jesus, duh
Baby Jesus cries about everything, to the point that only adult Jesus can take care of him.
They are stupid. They dream of being one with no hope that they will even be a millionaire. They are stupid and that is all it is.
