Opinion of billionaires

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

 Voted FF because calling people evil just because they're rich is kind of bad.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

People who hoard billions of dollars - regardless of whether they "earned" their money or not - while the rest of the world starve are undoubtedly horrible people in the literal sense of the term. And no, billionaires do not "provide" jobs. Refer to Comrade Lincoln:

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Being a billionaire means you hold more then a billion dollars worth of assets and investments. If you liquidate all of your assets to give to charity,

A. in the long run, less money(and therefore help) is able to be donated because the billionaire can't make any more,

 B. Yes, billionaires often do create jobs by investing. Stocks, for example, are when businesses sell a "part" of them for the capital they need to expand and hire more people, creating more jobs. Even putting money in a bank gives the bank access to more capital to be able to make more loans; loans that go to things like helping businesses get started or expand(creating jobs)

C. Here are the top 3 income brackets for charitable givings according to this.

Top 3(out of
1. Under $25,000 12.3%
2. $25,000 - $50,000 6.8%
3. Over 2,000,000 5.6%

Billionaires are beaten in average charitable deduction(and thus average charitable giving) by the poorest, who beat out everyone by a huge margin, and people making 25-50 thousand by a narrower amount.

The ranking (with the inference that people making 30,000 are donating 6-10% and the people making 45,000 are donating 3-5%)
1. The poor and struggling
2. The very rich
3. The middle class
4. The kind-of rich
5. The upper middle class

D. The vast majority of people in America give way less then they should. Most of you who voted HP are just as guilty of not giving enough as the people you declare evil.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

I assume if I started a poll saying "opinion of serial killers" you cowards would furiously that it is "unfair" to characterise the serial killing proportion of the populace as HP's?

Having lots of money is not remotely comparable to f**king murder. The hatred of "the 1%" on the left is honestly getting kind of scary. Even ignoring the very real risk of this mentality leading to a left-populist doing something designed to screw over rich people that ends up nuking the economy, the ability to casually dehumanize an entire group of people because of a a trait that they have unrelated to who they are as people is disturbing. You're all supposed to be better then this. The left is supposed to be about fighting prejudice, not promoting it.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

I assume if I started a poll saying "opinion of serial killers" you cowards would furiously that it is "unfair" to characterise the serial killing proportion of the populace as HP's?

Having lots of money is not remotely comparable to f**king murder. The hatred of "the 1%" on the left is honestly getting kind of scary. Even ignoring the very real risk of this mentality leading to a left-populist doing something designed to screw over rich people that ends up nuking the economy, the ability to casually dehumanize an entire group of people because of a a trait that they have unrelated to who they are as people is disturbing. You're all supposed to be better then this. The left is supposed to be about fighting prejudice, not promoting it.

Sorry, I suppose I'm displaying my "not a billionaire privilege".

Are you serious?! You're justifying the active dehumanization of a group of people with "they're privileged"!? How the f**k does that justify anything. Its not okay to advocate killing all men just because they tend to have privilege.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

People who hoard billions of dollars - regardless of whether they "earned" their money or not - while the rest of the world starve are undoubtedly horrible people in the literal sense of the term. And no, billionaires do not "provide" jobs. Refer to Comrade Lincoln:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Being a billionaire means you hold more then a billion dollars worth of assets and investments. If you liquidate all of your assets to give to charity,

A. in the long run, less money(and therefore help) is able to be donated because the billionaire can't make any more,

 B. Yes, billionaires often do create jobs by investing. Stocks, for example, are when businesses sell a "part" of them for the capital they need to expand and hire more people, creating more jobs. Even putting money in a bank gives the bank access to more capital to be able to make more loans; loans that go to things like helping businesses get started or expand(creating jobs)

C. Here are the top 3 income brackets for charitable givings according to this.

Top 3(out of
1. Under $25,000 12.3%
2. $25,000 - $50,000 6.8%
3. Over 2,000,000 5.6%

Billionaires are beaten in average charitable deduction(and thus average charitable giving) by the poorest, who beat out everyone by a huge margin, and people making 25-50 thousand by a narrower amount.

The ranking (with the inference that people making 30,000 are donating 6-10% and the people making 45,000 are donating 3-5%)
1. The poor and struggling
2. The very rich
3. The middle class
4. The kind-of rich
5. The upper middle class

D. The vast majority of people in America give way less then they should. Most of you who voted HP are just as guilty of not giving enough as the people you declare evil.

Pretty solid post, Omega

Thanks

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

I don't care why you have it but ffs Scarlet change your avatar to something more fitting to your disgusting plutocrat-shilling tendencies (yellow works very well).

You're a fucked up person if you thing "Having lots of money doesn't automatically make you literally evil" is a disgusting statement.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

Prejudice is prejudice, no matter who its towards. Dehumanization of a group of people based on trait or identity is always deplorable. These claims about "billionaires are always evil/always do evil things to get to where they are" are flat-out untrue, and frankly, set off the same alarm bells in my head that goes off on hate speech against other demonized groups that the left agrees shouldn't be demonized. Before this thread, I never would have said that bigotry against rich people is a thing to care about, but seeing the vile hate spewed against people just because they're rich has horrified me. I've realized that the evil of bigotry isn't simply about attacks on disadvantaged groups, but about the denial of dignity, of basic humanity to people because of a trait unrelated to who they are. Is Larry Page, that awkward, nerdy kid who knows how to program, really evil because his idea for this search engine to make the internet more helpful to humanity made him billions of dollars, which he then spent developing ideas he felt would make the world a better place? No. This rhetoric doesn't hurt him as much as similar attacks hurt Trayvon Martin, but its still an attack on the basic dignity of a human being.

Can we just talk about how back on the first page Scarlet implied that the only two options a person making a lot of money has are to hoard it, become richer than some countries, make tombs more splendid than the houses of the living, et cetera, or else to give it all away at once?

Read the post again.

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The rather obvious logical conclusion of this part of the post was that people should give some of their money but not enough that they can't make more, make more money, give enough of that new money but not so much that they can't make more, etc. After all, how else would not giving everything at once lead to more donations

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

Billionaires should give enough of their money that they stop being billionaires (or hell, they should limit themselves to 10 million as a maximum). Problem solved.

Being a Billionaire means you have more then a Billion dollars worth of assets. Many of those assets are how they make more money. And you can't donate millions or billions(depending on how many billions one makes) of dollars to charity every year unless you make billions of dollars every year. Plus a certain amount(don't make this a debate about whether the current amount is so much that its harmful, because I really don't care to discuss that question now, and that isn't the point) of investments by rich people are helpful to the economy(as while as occasionally getting projects like asteroid defense systems that could become very important to have but no one wants to fund rn).

Of course, all of this pretends that the middle class isn't just as guilty of not giving enough back.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

Billionaires should give enough of their money that they stop being billionaires (or hell, they should limit themselves to 10 million as a maximum). Problem solved.

Being a Billionaire means you have more then a Billion dollars worth of assets. Many of those assets are how they make more money. And you can't donate millions or billions(depending on how many billions one makes) of dollars to charity every year unless you make billions of dollars every year. Plus a certain amount(don't make this a debate about whether the current amount is so much that its harmful, because I really don't care to discuss that question now, and that isn't the point) of investments by rich people are helpful to the economy(as while as occasionally getting projects like asteroid defense systems that could become very important to have but no one wants to fund rn).

Of course, all of this pretends that the middle class isn't just as guilty of not giving enough back.

Uh, no.  By definition, the investments by rich people are in things that have a return on investment, largely without regard to their social utility.  Sometimes, those things are good, like new pills or something.  Sometimes they are socially deleterious, like putting your stock in mcdonalds or a tobacco company or budweiser or something.

But stuff like asteroid defense systems, massive research projects, dams, etc are by definition things that are too expensive/provide too little/too nebulous an ROI for even one billionaire to fund by themselves.  That's why all of those things (like computers, missiles, hoover dams, etc) start as government-funded research projects.

And it would be a better investment for the government to just take a huge chunk of the billionaire's income and pool it with other tax funds to do those impossibly large-scale, low ROI investment projects.  Or provide quality healthcare and education to jamal and jethro so that, instead of being chronically unhealthy and going to roach-infested sh**tty schools much different than the one you go to, they can have a chance to be the next big inventor/entrepreneur billionaire.

And most billion-dollar wealth is either inherited or made through compounded interest off of an initial windfall, not through creating a company/genius idea (the things that people DESERVE to be rich from).

Also, OF COURSE the middle class is as guilty or more of not giving enough back.  Everyone has to spend a fixed number of first few dollars on subsistence needs, then quality education, healthcare, etc before they have enough money to piss away on charity.  This fixed number of dollars is a smaller or even negative percentage of an lower-income individual's salary as compared to a mega-rich individual.  A mega-rich individual spends an infinitesimal % of his/her income on this first and second-level needs, so they have a much higher % of income freed for giving, most of which they hoard, as is human nature.

The vast majority of investments help companies expand and create new jobs on some level. The problem isn't too much of that, but not enough of other things(feeding people). Sometimes they do invest in damaging institutions, but the best solution to that is tax, which disincentivizes the production of the damaging good while preserving the innovative action of the free market(why this is something important is detailed below). The whole point of this argument originally was that people who have billions in assets aren't uniquely evil. They aren't these inhuman parasites that too many people in this thread paint them as.

Billionaires should give enough of their money that they stop being billionaires (or hell, they should limit themselves to 10 million as a maximum). Problem solved.

Being a Billionaire means you have more then a Billion dollars worth of assets. Many of those assets are how they make more money. And you can't donate millions or billions(depending on how many billions one makes) of dollars to charity every year unless you make billions of dollars every year. Plus a certain amount(don't make this a debate about whether the current amount is so much that its harmful, because I really don't care to discuss that question now, and that isn't the point) of investments by rich people are helpful to the economy(as while as occasionally getting projects like asteroid defense systems that could become very important to have but no one wants to fund rn).

Of course, all of this pretends that the middle class isn't just as guilty of not giving enough back.

This implies that billionaires have a right to decide how that money is invested. I say they don't. They people should decide that, and the profits go back to the people. Private property is not an absolute right.

The most successful of the economically fair states are basically a robust social safety net and welfare state slapped on top of a free market(the heritage foundation rated the three Scandinavian countries with their high taxes and big welfare as at a level of economic freedom almost equal to the US, and probably would have been above the US if government spending(which is a stupid measure of free markets) wasn't a factor).

Private property rights allow rewards for innovating and working hard, and that makes people do it. Most people need a reward to work hard. The free market is good at allocating resources, as long as you add things like piguvian taxes to account for social cost. The only thing it doesn't do well is ensure everyone gets a decent standard of living. A welfare state is the solution. It prevents poverty while still allowing incentives for people to innovate.

PS. a large group of people(note that large groups of individuals are subject to groupthink by human nature and thus typically act much less inteligently as a unit then the groups members would individually) who aren't specialized in picking out good investments aren't going to choose investments as well as a person who's current livelihood is reliant on making good investments.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

Is it so hard to accept that some people might find it inherently immoral to amass more than a certain amount of wealth, regardless of how they amassed it? Has the left abandoned the cultural struggle to the point that this simple idea strikes most people as facially absurd?

I know the answer is yes, and that saddens me to no end.

Well, most people amass wealth through creating giant businesses that employ thousands of people. The idea that some people having more money then average is inherently immoral is absurd.  The only thing that matters is that everyone has the resources to accomplish the things they want. When that's the case, why does income inequality matter enough to require intervention in of itself?

Private property rights might be efficient on utilitarian grounds (I'm not convinced of that, but I'm willing to admit that it's possible). That doesn't make them inherently morally valuable. And as such, the State is perfectly justified in setting limits to property rights, just like it sets proper bounds for other rights.

The value in property rights is destroyed by taking the decision to manage said property and every last shred of profit from it away.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

Most billionaires either got it because of their parents, or because they were ruthless assholes. They're really mostly all HP. Note that I don't think the same about people worth a couple of million.

Yes, those evil billionaires ruthlessly creating businesses that sell popular products well. That googel searchy thing was a really jerkish thing to make

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

It's pretty clear that you start from a moral framework that leads you to this conclusion. This moral framework is obviously terrible, but not very surprising. I guess that's the direction the wind is blowing towards.

"Income inequality doesn't matter if the very bottom still has enough to be comfortable and happy" is morally awful? I think you need to get your morality detector re-calibrated.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

It's pretty clear that you start from a moral framework that leads you to this conclusion. This moral framework is obviously terrible, but not very surprising. I guess that's the direction the wind is blowing towards.

"Income inequality doesn't matter if the very bottom still has enough to be comfortable and happy" is morally awful? I think you need to get your morality detector re-calibrated.

Yes, I believe that extreme inequality is wrong in and of itself. Deal with it.

I mean, after a certain point(about $100,000 IIRC), more money doesn't even make one more happy. Not to mention that tearing people down just because they're higher then everyone else is a pretty barbaric impulse.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

I mean, after a certain point(about $100,000 IIRC), more money doesn't even make one more happy.

That's a very good argument in favor of my position, yes. Thanks.

No, it isn't. It means that after everyone reaches the point(which likely shifts depending on the strength of the welfare state), redistribution does nothing to help people and really only serves to tear people down for daring to be wealthier then average. Plus, strong reduction in wealth tends to make one less happy via not having many of the things one is used to even if one falls to above the point.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

I mean, after a certain point(about $100,000 IIRC), more money doesn't even make one more happy.

That's a very good argument in favor of my position, yes. Thanks.

No, it isn't. It means that after everyone reaches the point(which likely shifts depending on the strength of the welfare state), redistribution does nothing to help people and really only serves to tear people down for daring to be wealthier then average. Plus, strong reduction in wealth tends to make one less happy via not having many of the things one is used to even if one falls to above the point.

...so you're saying that the billionaire's second billion is more important to their happiness than an additional $50k would be to a middle-income earner? lol

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No, the point is that losing enough money to force you to live without things that you're used to is bad for your happiness, Einstein. People do badly with less then they're used to in general.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

I mean, after a certain point(about $100,000 IIRC), more money doesn't even make one more happy.

That's a very good argument in favor of my position, yes. Thanks.

No, it isn't. It means that after everyone reaches the point(which likely shifts depending on the strength of the welfare state), redistribution does nothing to help people and really only serves to tear people down for daring to be wealthier then average. Plus, strong reduction in wealth tends to make one less happy via not having many of the things one is used to even if one falls to above the point.

...so you're saying that the billionaire's second billion is more important to their happiness than an additional $50k would be to a middle-income earner? lol

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No, the point is that losing enough money to force you to live without things that you're used to is bad for your happiness, Einstein. People do badly with less then they're used to in general.

What I said is the exact practical implication of what you just said. You're saying that taking away the billionaire's billions makes a greater difference in their happiness than redistributing that money to people who aren't billionaires (and who therefore start up with a lot less). I don't care what kind of pseudo-psychological bullsh*t you are using to back up this theory, it should be obviously disgusting to anyone with a basic sense of justice. I find it amazing that you even have the ability to feel sorry for those poor billionaires while being so dismissive about the struggles of people who aren't and who have to live in the real world where money actually matters.

You clearly aren't bothering to actually think about my arguments. The point which you refuse to see is that people get used to what they have. You need a decent amount of money to get past the point of routine money troubles, not having the right options, etc. Your happiness isn't boosted much by more money after that point. That alone would make further redistribution after everyone has enough pointless, thus, wasteful, and therefore not worth doing. However, losing a significant amount of your ability to access comfort, etc. does hurt you, because you lose things you're used to, things that you took for granted. That hurts anyone. People notice things they used to have but lost, options they don't have anymore.

You don't want this out of a sense of compassion. You don't want this because it'll help people. You want this because you resent the rich. You want this because you want to punish them. You want to hurt them. If you wanted to help people, you wouldn't advocate doing it when it no longer helps anyone. But you just hate people who have more money then average. Not even the concept on income inequality, but the people at the top themselves. Why, I don't know. Maybe its because their increased wealth is offensive to some perverted value of conformity. Maybe its because they aren't "your group. Maybe its something else. Maybe its all of the above. But regardless of the reason, you act like people are evil and deserve hatred and scorn, just for their wealth. You aren't fighting for the idea that rich people are no different then those with less, but for the idea that the rich are evil, inferior, even inhuman. Your indignant talk of "justice" betrays that. After all, Justice is nothing more than a righteous sounding word for revenge.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

In the interest of full disclosure, my own family makes about 100k a year right now and has assets that I seem to remember come pretty close to a million (we have a mortgage, though, which I guess should be deducted from that, but I have no idea how much it's worth). I'm doing pretty well for myself and my family should obviously be among the net "givers" of redistribution, but there's an obvious difference between this and friggin' billionaires (which no, I don't "hate" either - this has never been about personal hatred and I'm amazed I actually have to spell it out).

You certainly sound like you have a personal hatred. I don't see why having a net worth over a billion is so much "worse" then having a net worth of around a million.

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No, and a read about it on wikipedia reveals that it really isn't anything special.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

No I don't. You just interpret any principled argument against the immoral behavior of the rich as if it was born out of personal hatred because you're incapable of comprehending the principles on which it's based.

Sorry, I tend to interpret responding to "Having lots of money doesn't magically make you evil" with "disgusting plutocrat shiller" as thinking all people with lots of money are evil. Claiming that isn't hatred or prejudice against a group is absurd.

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"I may make a million dollars and keep it all to my self, but this other guy makes a billion dollars that he keeps to himself"

Its still giving 0% of your money back to society. BTW, I'm pretty sure the absolutist perspective you follow doesn't like factoring mathematical relationships into anything.

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This statement is so laughable in so many ways that I don't know what else to say.

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Beautiful