I think its immoral to have that much.
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Thatâs what a good taxation system should be doing. Americans really struggle with that concept.
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I donât think having that much is immoral, per se. Itâs what you do with it. If it is to serve yourself, and hoard it all, then I could get on board with that being immoral. It is such a wasted opportunity.
But if you use your money for other people and causes dear to your heart, fine.
Iâm always intrigued by these sort of conversations, as the line is set so high in discussing billionaires. But letâs go down the food chain, to a more everyday example. If someone makes comfortably 6 figures, and decides to drive a Mercedes S Class, most people would think that is successful, not immoral. A perfectly good car and still a âbadgeâ e.g. E Class or 5 series, could have been acquired for half the amount, and the difference given to charity.
Or if someone has a house, and also a lake cottage or similar, is that immoral due to the many homeless people who donât even have shelter?
Probably veering off track so I will make a comment on taxation in America.
It has been skewed since day one. The country was founded in a context of being taxed by Great Britain. They threw that off and became independent. But there has been an uneasy relationship with taxation ever since. In the American psyche it is culturally normal to do your utmost to pay as little taxes as possible. Everyone does their own taxes at the end of the year, and if you earn even a solid wage, you get an accountant to help minimize your tax bill.
Thereâs a massive disconnect between this behavior and how the infrastructure of a country is paid for. Any politician that speaks even normally into this is instantly branded a crazy socialist.
How do you get billions of dollars without hoarding it and serving yourself? These people have enough money in their personal bank accounts to fix so many social woes but instead it sits there or gets used to enhance their business empires even further.
If youâre a billionaire who plans to use your wealth for the good of all people or causes close to your heart then why do you still have billions? Canât find enough worthy causes? Canât find struggling families? Canât find good charities? If they really cared about other people that money wouldnât be tied up in their business interests or bank accounts.
Donât know how these people sleep at night. Donât care if its a crazy moron like Musk or a âgoodâ one like Buffet and Cuban. Fuck the lot of them.
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A very thought through and nuanced position.
Morality and immorality. You have to define your concept of these terms first. To me, what is moral is that which does not hinder human wellbeing (and to a lesser extent sentient animals). One person being ridiculously rich does not necessarily mean that somebody else is disadvantaged. Not helping your fellow man is not immoral. Actively disadvantaging him is. Comes back (as it always does) to left vs right. Capitalism vs socialism etc. To the left, money / wealth / power should be shared. To the right itâs earned. Yes you can inherit but what youâre inheriting has still been earned at some point.
A good question I suppose would be how many of these billionaires are actually billionaires in cash terms, versus holdings in one or two concentrated assets?
Iâm not bothered about justifying my position, the world seems to agree with everyone else. I couldnât do it. I couldnât go to bed at night sleeping soundly with millions and billions in my bank (or assets) while there are people who struggle to put food on the table everyday. Fuck every single one of them, selfish bastards.
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Iâm not necessarily disagreeing with your basic viewpoint, I just think we ought to be wary of the idea that theyâre hoarding everything in a bank account, when it can often be the case that theyâre non-liquid holdings.
There is a growing perspective in psychology that billionaire is a personality rather than a label achieved on the back of incredible business success. What that second 500m million in net worth can buy you in tangible goods and security that you couldnât obtain with the first 500m is pretty much zero, and so the only thing it can really do for you is allow you to wield power. It requires a certain personality trait with very few redeeming characteristics to keep pushing towards that second 500m and beyond.
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To the degree it is often tied up in holdings of a company for which they were founders/on the ground floor, this is maybe true. But related to my point above, it almost always still requires hoarding a disproportionate amount of those growing holdings to go from being âfuck youâ rich to crossing over into being a billionaire.
Well, this is embarrassing - same day coverage of Jan6th riot has Fox calling for prosecutions because Republicansâ moral superiority over the left means they will always condemn public disorder
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I made the point a while ago that polling aggregators, the thing that brought Nate Silver to prominence in 08, are now largely useless because of how many of the polling groups used in the common aggregations/models have become crass political operations.
But how bad can that be? See this from the âGold Standardâ conservative polling group claiming that their polling on the level of agreement with the phrase âFauci lied, people diedâ means that we can infer the vaccines killed more people than jews died in the holocaust
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Ohio 6th District Special Election last night and interestingly the result was not at all what Republicans were expecting. They won the district by 9%, in 2022 they won it by 36%. In 2020 it was 51 point win for Trump.
For a party that is apparently polling a double digit lead in many major polls this is a shocking result.
In recent special elections we have seenâŚ
NY 3rd went from a Republican 10pt win in 2022 to a Democrat 8pt win in February 2024.
NY 26th went from a 26pt Democrat win in 2022 to a 37pt Democrat win in April 2024.
And now Ohio 6th going from 36pt Republican win in 2022 to a 9pt Republican win in 2024.
Following the generic ballot would have these kinds of major Democrat swings as not possible, but they are there. Ever since the Dobbs vs Jackson decision Democrats have been consistently overperforming the polls.
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Big caveat that the turn out was tiny, maybe only about 10% of that from the regular election. But this is Trump country, not just in terms of prior vote share but in terms of the prime demographic we keep being told he has got on side. For sure, come November lots of the no shows will show up in the general to vote for him, but these are the regions he needs to win big in for him to carry the rust belt states and so even small amounts of apathy will be a killer.
Given that, it is maybe worth addressing the the first ever post-Silver 538 presidential model was published this week giving Biden a 52-48 advantage over Biden
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Thanks. I completely understand the point, Iâm just cynical about someone that says that when heâs on his way out. It would be more impressive if it was said when he made his his 1st billion. Itâs sort of like a Hollywood type calling out the predators in the industry only when they close to retirement and can afford to make waves. Itâs not brave at all, itâs sort of like sitting behind a keyboard and calling someone a douche, zero risk.
Buffet has been saying this stuff for as long as Iâve known who he is
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Apparently the numbers were that 2020 Trump voters turned out at a rate of 12%, 2020 Biden voters at 22%. Of course there are multiple reasons for this (assumptions that vote would be Red no matters what, Trump telling Rs votes arenât trustworthy, general apathy, lack of âpullâ without Trump on ballot etc.) but itâs a 2 year trend now that Democrats have been able to motivate their base at a higher rate than Republicans with abortion seeming to be the big ticket issue.
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They donât hoard it though, they reinvest or take loans out against paper wealth in order to start another company, etc. I appreciate that the tax system is fucked up, but why focus on a few billionaires while losing focus the significantly larger amount of corporations that are worth significantly more. I also dont think sending more money to an inefficient government is the answer.
One of the things I wonder is how long the tail is for the demotivating effect Trumpâs big lie has on turning out a portion of his disaffected base. This was speculated as a contributor to the Dems winning the two Georgia run offs in the immediate aftermath of his 2020 loss when he was airing the message at its most intense, but I am holding on to the idea that he has created for himself some of the apathy for his candidacy. These are people who traditionally did not vote because they didnt think their vote mattered and it seems likely a portion of them will go back to believing that and acting accordingly after 4 years of Trump yelling at them that its true.