this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
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You all realize they don't have that money laying around to pay the IRS right? They own companies, those companies are worth that much. To pay that you would have to liquidate those companies. So no more Amazon, Tesla, Space X, etc...
Oh no! Anyway, so how can we make this happen, like, yesterday?
Don't be a bootlicker or bot or idiot.
When they sell their shares to buy twitter or pay the tax man, those companies still exist. It just means that other people get to buy those shares and that's a good thing, because that way those companies get owned by the public.
Tesla and SpaceX still exist even after Elon overpaid by some $30B for his Twitter adventure.
Brings a tear to my eye, I tells ya
You don't have to liquidate. Giving governments around the world more of a direct say in these international companies would be good.
Don't threaten me with a good time
I would be happy to take taxes in the form of ownership of the company
here the tax genius of Henry the 8th comes into play "pay me my money or else"
when noblemen didn't pay william the conqueror the taxes he felt were due on time he would boil them. The principle being that if the rich face consequences for breaking the law they obey.
Well they are public companies bar space x so. Just redistribute those shares.
I highly recommend you to read the paper billionare argument. The market can stand the liquidation of most of those companies without making them go bankrupt, we don't want them to stop existing, just to make them smaller and not a threat to democracy.
For the whole scale of wealth I also recommend going through wealth shown to scale
Can billionaires liquidate their assets? Yes, it is theoretically possible
The real question is, who is going to buy the assets?
Let's say we have a billionaire that owns a billion dollar company.
Could that billionaire sell all their shares, get a billion dollars in cash, and then give it away. Yes, it is possible.
But that billion dollars in cash has to come from somewhere. Either the citizens have to come with a billion dollars in cash or the government.
If the citizens spend a billion to buy the shares, then the government takes the billion in cash from the billionaire, then the government gives a billion back to the citizens. You just basically printed an extra billion dollars for the economy, which causes inflation. Because the citizens now have two billion in stocks and cash, compared to just one billion in cash.
Our fiat money system has flaws, one day it is going to crash.
But Besos' 100+ billion in Amazon stock is money tied up outside of the economy until he sells.
Forcing him to sell and introduce that money into the economy has repercussions.
I didn't say you needed to make them dump it all at once, but no matter how you do it, you're introducing more money into the economy.
Again, great the market isn't disturbed and stocks are still worth a billion total. You're still going to introduce another billion into the economy in "two-three" years by giving it to the poor.
The whole point of taking money from billionaires is to affect the economy. There's no point in doing it if it's not going to affect anything.
The money is already in the economy, it is just not moving hands. When talking about disturbing the economy I was alluding to inflation, lots of poor families will gladly welcome that money. Also if we allowed us to take a little bit more, the social services will be allowed to improve substantially
Say I invented the cure for cancer today and started the business Cancer Cure Inc. tomorrow.
I own 100% of the shares of the company. Say there are 100 shares.
Each share of Cancer Cure Inc. would be valued at X/100 amount of money because Cancer Cure Inc. would be valued at X.
If Cancer Cure Inc. company was valued at a billion dollars. Each share would be worth 10 million dollars.
I would be seen as a billionaire because I own the 100 shares. Yet I haven't sold a single share. No money has exchanged hands for the shares.
A billion dollars doesn't just magically enter the economy because Cancer Cure Inc. exists. It would take an existing billion dollars to buy my shares.
Now, if people wanted to give me a billion dollars in cash for my 100 shares, and I sold them. I'd have a billion dollars in cash, and the people would have a billion dollars in Cancer Cure Inc. stock.
Now, if the government takes my billion dollars in cash and hand that to the people, they now have a billion dollars in stock and a billion dollars in cash.
It doesn't matter if I own 100 stocks of Cancer Cure Inc. or if 100 different wealthy people own 1 stock each. What changed is that there is now 1 billion more cash floating in the economy.
That's what causes inflation
I'm not saying it's right. Capitalism has winners and losers, rich and poor. It's just how the capitalism system has to work.
The people on here want you to work hard and take all the risk, create Cancer Cure Inc. Then take all your company and give it to the workers so you have nothing.
No, they'd just need to liquidate their share in those companies. Those shares would then get bought up by other people or by pension funds.
Or picked apart by private equity vultures at the expense of pension funds.
Just redistribute ownership to the workers. There's no need for liquidation here.
All they’d need to liquidate is part of their ownership in said companies. Companies themselves will be ok, don’t you worry your bleeding heart.
That's not true at all. Loss of controlling ownership makes a company vulnerable to a hostile takeover. The new owners will pick it apart like the vultures they are.
RIP grannies pension plan
That’s the thing people don’t get. The ultra wealthy are wealthy on paper.
On an average years. All of us make more than Elon in wages.
You’re making it sound like the wealthy are rich in technicality only. Maybe the majority of their assets aren’t liquid but they’re still damn wealthy more than “on paper.”
And singling out wages as the only source of income to prove Elon isn’t “actually” wealthy is disingenuous at best.
He’s wealthy but he doesn’t have a high income.
We tax income in America. That’s why Elon pays little and same with bezos. They just don’t have much income.
It personally doesn’t bother me they have billions. They pay their fair share of their taxes just like I pay mine.
You’re not poor because they’re rich. Once you stop focusing on others and focus on yourself; life becomes much easier.
It’s interesting you assume I’m poor just because I’m not licking those boots.
You are. It’s easy to figure out. When people confuse wealth with income, it’s easy to figure out.
People here think there is some finite wealth pie, and if you cut a big piece somehow that leaves more for everyone else
I’ve noticed their knowledge of economics is about zero.
I agree they think Elon has their part of the pie. He doesn’t. If they understood how stocks work, they’d know he has zero of their pie.
They also think he is sitting on billions in cash. He isn’t.
At least Elon created functioning companies for his wealth. He also created many millionaires.
That’s a good billionaire. You can go buy his product at the store.
Facebook. You are the product.
What does that matter? He doesn't take wages intentionally. He has a large stock portfolio that he can borrow against and thereby pay no taxes on that "income".
What did Elon get paid, excluding stock options at companies he works for?
I bet he still makes more than me.
Most years under 30k. Often a dollar or free.
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/02/20/investing/elon-musk-pay/index.html
That actually almost seems worse. He is not paying into Social Security or his local community. He is being generously compensated on stock, which is taxed differently.
Edit: I do want to thank you for providing that link. I was only finding a Forbes article about him being the highest compensated CEO of that year.
He’s paying in the local community through property taxes.
He’s highly compensated through stock and when he bought twitter. We got some huge amount of money in Taxes.
You’re correct. He rarely pays into social but that’s a problem for Congress to solve.
There are many ways to solve this bullshit and one is not allow them to borrow against their stock. That’s how they live for so cheap. I’m not opposed to stopping that at all.
Borrowing against stock needs to stop yesterday, especially if it’s not specifically for the interests of the company whose stock is being used.