• Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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    6 hours ago

    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.

    • Alexander@sopuli.xyz
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      3 hours ago

      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.

  • nucleative@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    And not one of them can walk down the street in any city he wants at any time.

    Prisoners in their own chains.

  • nonentity@sh.itjust.works
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    11 hours ago

    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.

    • Bennyboybumberchums@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      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.

    • buttnugget@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      Calling it “financial obesity” makes it sound innocuous or even good. Wealth hoarding is treason.

      • nonentity@sh.itjust.works
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        7 hours ago

        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.

          • luciferofastora@feddit.org
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            6 hours ago

            “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.

      • plyth@feddit.org
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        7 hours ago

        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.

        • buttnugget@lemmy.world
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          7 hours ago

          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.

          • luciferofastora@feddit.org
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            5 hours ago

            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.

          • LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world
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            5 hours ago

            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.

  • vogo13@sh.itjust.works
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    13 hours ago

    “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.

    • HugeNerd@lemmy.ca
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      11 hours ago

      Only because the beady-eyed weaselly fuck on the other side is worse.

  • jballs@sh.itjust.works
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    21 hours ago

    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.

  • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    19 hours ago

    … They’re all in one room?

    A guillotine is unnecessarily complicated.

    … and also too humane.

  • Basic Glitch@sh.itjust.works
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    16 hours ago

    #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?

    • Etterra@discuss.online
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      16 hours ago

      It seems to leave out autocratic leaders of countries with equivalent wealth and greater power, such as Prince Bonesaw and Vlad Putler.

      • Basic Glitch@sh.itjust.works
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        16 hours ago

        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.

    • altphoto@lemmy.today
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      16 hours ago

      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!