Current Events > Do you think billionaires should exist?

(+) Yeah! (+)

.....exist.
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I think they should have the potential to, yes. But it's hard to see how anyone can become one without profiting out of significant exploitation of labor in some form or another.

Bill Gates done it through ruthless market domination, which is different I guess. But when I read about how bad it is to work in an Amazon warehouse or something I do feel it is a little wrong that someone is making that scale of money and the workers facilitating it are struggling to get by.

they should exist only after every single citizen has healthcare, pharmacare, dental, food, affordable housing, and clean drinking water.

If society still has issues getting those things to everyone, it's immoral for a small amount of individuals to have such excess wealth.

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I don't have much of a problem with billionaires existing, except that they should probably not be able to "buy" politicians. That, I will admit, is a problem. Other than that, I feel most people are just jealous of them having more. I read that there are around 2,000 billionaires in the world, yet I don't ever think about them or even know who most of them are and my life keeps going on as usual.
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Huh what was the question? I was busy ordering some Harry Potter books with Amazon Prime on my iPhone which is currently connected to WiFi from Comcast.

Lorenzo_2003 posted...

I don't have much of a problem with billionaires existing, except that they should probably not be able to "buy" politicians. That, I will admit, is a problem. Other than that, I feel most people are just jealous of them having more. I read that there are around 2,000 billionaires in the world, yet I don't ever think about them or even know who most of them are and my life keeps going on as usual.

yeah i kinda agree "jealous of them having more" , and many of them started their own companies and made those companies super successful, most people couldn't do that.
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It isn't that they shouldn't exist

but the fact that they do in a world where there is such horrific levels of abject poverty, is pretty appalling.

They should have the ability and potential to but if they're only hoarding money in a some perverted sense of high score then fuck 'em.
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No! And they should give their extra money TO ME!!

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HURGGHHH BILLIONAIRES ARE EVIL!

Now ask yourself how many thousands upon thousands of families have put food on the table and sent kids through college because they worked for Bill Gates or Warren Buffet. Myopic people who don't understand economics like Alex Cortez see Jezz Bezos building a helicopter pad and go "That's immoral! Nobody needs that!" while ignoring all the people who are employed in that project. The engineers who designed it. The fabricators who made the pieces. The people who drive the trucks transporting those pieces. The ironworkers who assemble them. Everyone else along the line who earns a living with money that comes from a billionaire somewhere up the stream. How many man hours do you think it takes to start with "I want a helicopter pad" to a finished helicopter pad? A lot of people making a lot of money.

ArchiePeck posted...

I think they should have the potential to, yes. But it's hard to see how anyone can become one without profiting out of significant exploitation of labor in some form or another.

Bill Gates done it through ruthless market domination, which is different I guess. But when I read about how bad it is to work in an Amazon warehouse or something I do feel it is a little wrong that someone is making that scale of money and the workers facilitating it are struggling to get by.

OH NOES exploitation of labor! People are struggling to get by! Meanwhile, in the real world, wages are up and taxes are down. People are earning more money and keeping a larger portion of it. Unemployment is at record lows, workforce participation is going up, and the record high stock market means their investments are doing tremendous. You can buy into all the doom and gloom you want: life is pretty damn good for Americans with jobs right now and if you're struggling, Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos aren't what's holding you down. You need a mirror to figure out the bogeyman in that scenario. If you believe you are being "exploited," go get a new job. The economy is roaring and the jobs are out there. You can't be "exploited" at a position you voluntarily took.
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Doom_Art posted...

they should exist only after every single citizen has healthcare, pharmacare, dental, food, affordable housing, and clean drinking water.

If society still has issues getting those things to everyone, it's immoral for a small amount of individuals to have such excess wealth.

Hell yeah

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Fuparulez posted...

Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos aren't what's holding you down.

All I needed to see to know that your post was full of crap lol

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wackyteen posted...

It isn't that they shouldn't exist

but the fact that they do in a world where there is such horrific levels of abject poverty, is pretty appalling.

They should have the ability and potential to but if they're only hoarding money in a some perverted sense of high score then fuck 'em.

Billionaires donate massive amounts to charity.

https://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do/Global-Health/HIV

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/jeff-bezos-announces-2-billion-philanthropic-effort-n909271

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2796621-report-mark-cuban-donating-10m-to-charity-after-nba-found-workplace-misconduct
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A billion dollars is more money than you can possibly spend in a lifetime.

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wackyteen posted...

It isn't that they shouldn't exist

but the fact that they do in a world where there is such horrific levels of abject poverty, is pretty appalling.

They should have the ability and potential to but if they're only hoarding money in a some perverted sense of high score then fuck 'em.

And this

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Doom_Art posted...

Fuparulez posted...

Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos aren't what's holding you down.

All I needed to see to know that your post was full of crap lol

You can refute anything I said. You will fail, but you can go ahead and try. I've forgotten more about macroeconomics than you will ever know.
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Fuparulez posted...

You can refute anything I said. You will fail, but you can go ahead and try. I've forgotten more about macroeconomics than you will ever know.

It'd be worthless to argue about this with you because if you're going to automatically see the other side as jealous or just blaming billionaires for "keeping them down" then there's not much I can say to you lol

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It's worthless to argue because you're coming from an emotional position while I'm coming from a rational one backed by science and fact. Billionaires create jobs that put food on middle class tables. You can say working for Amazon sucks all you want. If it were THAT bad, 650,000 people wouldn't be working for them right now.

You can say somebody being a billionaire is immoral while other people struggle fort the basics, but if you took ALL the net worth from ALL the American billionaires, you'd end up with about 3.5 trillion dollars. Not their income, but seized 100% of ALL their money. 3.5 trillion. The Democrats' "Medicare For All" plan costs FIVE trillion dollars per year. If you bankrupted every billionaire in the country, you could fund "free" healthcare for eight and a half months. So that position might sound good until you introduce actual figures, and then like most emotional based leftist talking points, it falls apart.
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i never got the anti-billionaire sentiment b/c it always seems like it's based on the assumption that these guys have 10 billion dollar a year salaries and keep all their hundreds of billions in a checking account. when in reality for most of them isnt it just them having ownership in highly values companies and lots of investments?
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Fuparulez posted...

It's worthless to argue because you're coming from an emotional position while I'm coming from a rational one backed by science and fact. Billionaires create jobs that put food on middle class tables. You can say working for Amazon sucks all you want. If it were THAT bad, 650,000 people wouldn't be working for them right now.

You can say somebody being a billionaire is immoral while other people struggle fort the basics, but if you took ALL the net worth from ALL the American billionaires, you'd end up with about 3.5 trillion dollars. Not their income, but seized 100% of ALL their money. 3.5 trillion. The Democrats' "Medicare For All" plan costs FIVE trillion dollars per year. If you bankrupted every billionaire in the country, you could fund "free" healthcare for eight and a half months. So that position might sound good until you introduce actual figures, and then like most emotional based leftist talking points, it falls apart.

yeah i mostly agree with you dude. I have heard some people say, and think, that if you took all the world's billionaires' wealth that it should pay for everything and lift every american out of poverty. That opinion is lunacy. And i agree a lot of it does have to do with resentment and jealousy
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Fuparulez posted...

You can say working for Amazon sucks all you want. If it were THAT bad, 650,000 people wouldn't be working for them right now.

You can say child labor sucks all you want. If it were THAT bad, children wouldn't be working 12-hour days for pennies an hour.

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Fuparulez posted...

It's worthless to argue because you're coming from an emotional position while I'm coming from a rational one backed by science and fact.

I don't know, your little rant about how sunshine and daisies the world is today comes across as rather emotional and a bit delusional.

Plus your implication that the only reason someone would have a problem with billionaires is because of jealousy or some sort of bitterness.

Repost as many quickly searched articles from Google as ya like, I guess lol

Fuparulez posted...

You can say somebody being a billionaire is immoral while other people struggle fort the basics

Thank you, I believe I will.

It is immoral for so few individuals to have such excessive wealth while so many struggle to make a living.

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Fuparulez posted...

It's worthless to argue because you're coming from an emotional position while I'm coming from a rational one backed by science and fact.

"emotional position" he says while going on a tirade about bankrupting all billionaires as if those are the only people being taxed to fund anything.
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Such excessive wealth should be viewed the same way as a memory leak bug in software. Economies should not function in that way.
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Defending billionaires is an emotional argument in itself. Why do you care so much about them if not emotion?

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Pirwzwhomper posted...

Such excessive wealth should be viewed the same way as a memory leak bug in software. Economies should not function in that way.

Word

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Wow we got a lot of people that view billionaires as necessary or are okay with it. Boy how much we fit the natural selection argument so well.
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CountDog posted...

Wow we got a lot of people that view billionaires as necessary or are okay with it. Boy how much we fit the natural selection argument so well.

natural selection? what are you on about?
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The biggest problem with the anti-rich people is their assumption (and you know what they say about those) that the rich are morally obligated to fix Americas issues with their money.

The American government is who is obligated to fix Americas problems. Thats why we the people vote for the politicians we want to see make the changes that we want to see.

And the last point of lunacy with this thinking is where do we begin? Does my brother in law who makes more than 200k a year rich? Sure the fuck is to me. Should he give up his wealth because I dont make 250k a year? The government should not be taking peoples money. The government should be making sure that the rich got rich by their own means. As in not buying politicians or not being taxed equally as the rest of us. If indeed those are happening.

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Lorenzo_2003 posted...

I don't have much of a problem with billionaires existing, except that they should probably not be able to "buy" politicians. That, I will admit, is a problem. Other than that, I feel most people are just jealous of them having more. I read that there are around 2,000 billionaires in the world, yet I don't ever think about them or even know who most of them are and my life keeps going on as usual.

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There is absolutely no reason for single persons to be able to hoard that much money.

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JebronLames posted...

yeah i mostly agree with you dude. I have heard some people say, and think, that if you took all the world's billionaires' wealth that it should pay for everything and lift every american out of poverty. That opinion is lunacy. And i agree a lot of it does have to do with resentment and jealousy

i have a sneaking suspicion that you made this topic just because you wanted to hear that ;P

thanosibe posted...

The American government is who is obligated to fix Americas problems. Thats why we the people vote for the politicians we want to see make the changes that we want to see.

The government is also the entity in charge of overseeing taxation and the financial sector.

To your first point, it's not that billionaires should be obligated to fix problems it's that they shouldn't be able to gather that amount of wealth to begin with.

thanosibe posted...

Does my brother in law who makes more than 200k a year rich?

Is your brother in law a billionaire?

If not then I'm not sure what he has to do with anything ITT

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any wealth over $10k should be redistributed
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ThyCorndog posted...

Defending billionaires is an emotional argument in itself. Why do you care so much about them if not emotion?

Because attacking them honestly is unfair

If billionaires should be forced to give up their wealth because we make less, then we should all distribute our wealth to those less fortunate. So kiss your smartphone good bye and give it to a starving kid in India or something. Its only fair.
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In order to become as rich as he is, Jeff Bezos had to start a company that hundreds of millions of people use willingly each month, because it is cheaper and more convenient than what they used before. The same can be said for Gates and MS, Buffett and all the companies he invest in, etc. Even then their "wealth" is really just an estimation of the value of their assets. They don't actually have Scrooge McDuck vaults full of billions of dollars sitting untaxed, so it's very odd to blame wealth inequality on problems we face in this country.

So yes we should have a system that offers incentive to innovate.

StealthRock posted...

If billionaires should be forced to give up their wealth because we make less, then we should all distribute our wealth to those less fortunate. So kiss your smartphone good bye and give it to a starving kid in India or something. Its only fair.

this is a silly argument to make and you know it

or if you don't know it, then i feel bad for ya

Broseph_Stalin posted...

So yes we should have a system that offers incentive to innovate.

this idea that "if people can't horde dozens of billions of dollars there's no incentive to succeed" has never made any sense to me


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StealthRock posted...

Because attacking them honestly is unfair

If billionaires should be forced to give up their wealth because we make less, then we should all distribute our wealth to those less fortunate. So kiss your smartphone good bye and give it to a starving kid in India or something. Its only fair.

*People propose a place to draw the line*

"wHeRe WoUlD wE dRaW tHe LiNe?"
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Instead of taking money from poor starving billionaires we should start practicing eugenics. Don't want to live in poverty? Simple, don't be born.
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To take incentive away from a human being and limit them from reaching the full potential of their ambitions is a quintessential violation of an individual's dignity/spirit etc...
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Doom_Art posted...

this idea that "if people can't horde dozens of billions of dollars there's no incentive to succeed" has never made any sense to me

The problem is you're assuming they're hoarding billions of dollars.

Warren Buffet is valued at around $90 billion because he owns assets (stocks) estimated to be worth that much. His real income is around $10 million a year.

Doom_Art posted...

The government is also the entity in charge of overseeing taxation and the financial sector.

To your first point, it's not that billionaires should be obligated to fix problems it's that they shouldn't be able to gather that amount of wealth to begin with.

Is your brother in law a billionaire?

If not then I'm not sure what he has to do with anything ITT

And the government overseeing taxation and the financial sector should be to make sure all are taxed equally and their wealth is gotten legally.

Well just agree to disagree. Because you start at billionaires and then you just keep working your way down the ladder till youve got everyone stagnant at the wealth cap you arbitrarily set that works with your moral compass.

Thats not how equality works. Thankfully. Equality is giving everyone an equal start. What each individual is able to accomplish with that start is what makes America great. And I wouldnt want that changed just because Im not a billionaire.

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If I worship money enough I too might become rich

Kazi1212 posted...

To take incentive away from a human being and limit them from reaching the full potential of their ambitions is a quintessential violation of an individual's dignity/spirit etc...

I don't think that having a lot of money is an ambition worth much of anything. There's certainly nothing dignified or spiritual about it.

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Doom_Art posted...

they should exist only after every single citizen has healthcare, pharmacare, dental, food, affordable housing, and clean drinking water.

If society still has issues getting those things to everyone, it's immoral for a small amount of individuals to have such excess wealth.

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Kazi1212 posted...

To take incentive away from a human being and limit them from reaching the full potential of their ambitions is a quintessential violation of an individual's dignity/spirit etc...

The only way to make that much money is by exploiting the labor of other people and creating monopolies.
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FursonaNonGrata posted...

The only way to make that much money is by exploiting the labor of other people and creating monopolies.

I don't think you know what a monopoly is.

AlephZero posted...

any wealth over $10k should be redistributed

This is closer to what the far left believes tbqh. They are starting with billionaires because the moral outrage is easier to fabricate, but we all know they want to go after millionaires too. And eventually anyone who is not on the governmental teat in general.

It is a central tenant of far leftism.

There are no millionaires on Xanax

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Tyranthraxus posted...

There are no millionaires on Xanax

Lol. You really haven't been paying attention to the young rap stars

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Broseph_Stalin posted...

FursonaNonGrata posted...

The only way to make that much money is by exploiting the labor of other people and creating monopolies.

I don't think you know what a monopoly is.

You are fucking insufferable
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