8 men own same wealth as half the world
8 men own same wealth as half the world
Comments
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In the words of some CEOs... "Execution is everything"
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And by killing those 8, the wealth would be distributed such that 8 people would own the same wealth as half the world.
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then don't stop. just keep going.
this must be what Reagan meant by "trickle down economics"
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Trickle down
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"It's a trickle...of blood!!" da-dum!
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Where do you draw the line for inherited wealth without qualifying for execution, what is the grace period, and how do you enforce it unilaterally without exceptions?
Or is the plan that you and your friends make the decisions case by case and are yourselves also exceptions?
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We gather the top 8 and tell them #9 is being promoted to #1, either through a wealth tax, or a head tax.
Repeat at least annually.
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How about the highest number gets to do the deed. Lowman gets to take out highman.
Edit: *Lowman on the totem
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So a return to monarchy.
At that point we should just utilize democracy to tax them.
EDIT: I misread that as the #9 getting the wealth of the previous 8.
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I mean, Musk has how many kids? That definitely dilutes things. If you include the mothers, none of them would make it to 1 billion if evenly distributed.
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Yeah I hate the 1% but you have to be extremely naive to think that just killing them is the answer when all of the mechanisms that led to their existence are intact.
Even if you killed the top 10 richest people every month you'd still have insane wealth consolidation, just with different family members on the chopping block each month.
The French revolution ended in utter chaos because they had no plan beyond killing the crown.
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I guarantee Musk has an estate planned by very expensive lawyers and bankers. The vast majority of his loved ones won't recieve jack squat.
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They have to have more than one heir at any time though right? So like that can't be true unless they own enough wealth that even when split and taxed their primary heir's still have too much.
In that case I agree, rinse and repeat. No one should own more than something like 20 million in wealth.
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Shucks, I thought the blood coming out would magically irrigate every bank account and solve all unfairness.
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this also illustrates it pretty well, though not nearly as seriously: https://neal.fun/spend/
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That's fantastic. Thanks for sharing.
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This is so simple and so good at visualizing what dimensions we're talking about!
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gives a brand new meaning to doomscrolling
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It's just a matter of time before all that wealth flows down and everyone gets rich. Trust the system, it's working as intended.
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They don't call it a "golden shower" for nothing!
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Oh it's supposed to be candy? I have a call to make.
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Ohh let me see what flower that is..
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... They're all in one room?
A guillotine is unnecessarily complicated.
... and also too humane.
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Panels are in the wrong order. It should either be 3, 1, 2, 4 or 3, 2, 1, 4. These orders offer different feelings to the progression. Either way, you have to set the stage for the joke with 3.
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If something like this ever did happen IRL, the vast majority of the world would cheer.
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I mean, one got shot and killed, and there was celebration.
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And the guy wasn't even anywhere near being a billionaire.
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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.
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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.
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Calling it “financial obesity” makes it sound innocuous or even good. Wealth hoarding is treason.
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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.
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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.
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"Someday I'll be one of those 8"
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trickle down economics. amirite?
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Those dumb cunts ruining my life and I hate it
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You mean waking up in the morning being scared nr 9 will overtake you?
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If that happens then they'll have to sell all their cars with gullwing/scissor doors and buy a car with regular doors.
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"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.
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Only because the beady-eyed weaselly fuck on the other side is worse.
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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.
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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.
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But then we’d get back to authoritarian society where some random representative would have resources to usurp.
How does that follow yet dismantling all current systems wouldn't cause the same problem?
The answer is taxes. It's simple and effective without any revolution that would likely result in an authoritarian regime. It's a lack of taxes which allows authoritarians to flourish because the money they centralize is power. Distribute the money and you distribute the power.
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#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?
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#1 Bill Gates: $75 billion
musk just reached 500B - is this list from the 90s?
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It seems to leave out autocratic leaders of countries with equivalent wealth and greater power, such as Prince Bonesaw and Vlad Putler.
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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.
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I wonder how much the loon that runs Turkmenistan has just in gold toilets?
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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!
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I don't care about the heads.
I just want to repurpose the assets.
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It’s symbolic.
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Why limit it to 8? Why not just take the most recent Forbes rich list as a list of undesirables
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Because
- Forbes doesn't even list everyone
- There are rare cases of absurdly rich who don't deserve harsh punishment (but deserve their fortune to be taken away and fairly distributed, of course)
- Taking info from a private company to do so would be… questionable.
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There are no ethical billionaires. All of them got their wealth by exploiting people. The ones that seem like nice people still got there by causing untold harm to thousands or millions of people, and they continue to exploit people and personally benefit no matter what ideals they pay lipservice to.
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*That we know of
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Yeah right. There would be 500 security guards and probably 1mln to get in.
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All the politicians need to do is say 'we know this is about money. So we will hire you for double your pay and benefits to come work for us' and they'll defect. It is a job after all.
Then who will save the billionaires?
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Why just 8, not 10? They must be hiding someone, hmm...
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Fun (or not so, depending on an angle) fact: One can pay an uncertain amount of money for their name to be taken off that list. So, 8 that we know of and that are not hiding form the world.
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Why 10? and not 11? Who are you trying to protect?
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The 0x0Cth, of course!
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And not one of them can walk down the street in any city he wants at any time.
Prisoners in their own chains.
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Nor their kids.
It's tragi comic.
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The best part is you can lure them there by inviting them to give a Ted talk how they made so much money and the rest of the world needs to learn from them as an example.
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Eight? Then there are five people missing from that stage.
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For those interested in more recent numbers, here is the latest Forbes top ten list: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeswealthteam/article/the-top-ten-richest-people-in-the-world/
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that is why they all live on islands
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No one truly knows the way forward, just that where we are is a bad place. Someday, the framers of our time will have to figure something out. Hopefully they will hear us, and take the best ideas for that something.
Anyhow, I think we should outright create an artificial economic system. Our problems come from inherited wealth, stratified institutions, and rube-goldberg solutions to corruption and inequality.
I think that one replacement that would be gamechanging, would be to make getting an education into a paid job. The state and federal government pays students for their grades. If this income is sufficient, a student can focus solely on learning, instead of accruing debt and being distracted by part-time work. We get more people getting their learning completed, thus entering the job market with the ability needed.
Of course, we would have to address more issues. Such as ghost jobs, unreasonable hiring standards, decentivizing companies from replacing veteran workers with greenhorns for fiscal reasons, and so forth. We simultaneously have too many and too few job seekers, due to perverse incentives.
I think it isn't companies that should be involved with hiring, instead they should send a request for a worker to the government, who posts the position with standardized requirements and reviews whether prospective employees have the required credentials. The government also tracks whether or not a job position is going unfilled by the company, and starts penalizing the corporation if a posted position consistently needs filling, employees churning, and so forth. This might help with the ghost job issue, and address issues of unfairness.
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The thing that people always forget about billionaires is that their wealth is nothing compared to nation states and the people that control said nation states.
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If this is anything to go by, if Musk becomes a trillionaire he'd be at 37, just behind Ireland but ahead of Greece.
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I may forgive Zucc slightly cause he was ready to beat the shit out of the Elshit Musk, all the others can die already though especially Jeff Bezos
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Nice try Zucc
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That's how we end up with the next Napoleon.
If we kill them without knowing what they do, things won't change.
If we know what they do, we don't have to kill them.-
Nice try Bill. Put your head in here, you are going first.
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We can start by releasing the Epstein Files
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They will fight us
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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.
Top 3 today are just shy of 1 trillion dollars...
Elon musk has between $470B-$500B to his name, according to bloomberg and forbes. That would make him richer than the world's wealthiest 8 men in 2017.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_of_Elon_Musk
I am totally on board this is my pre face.
That is not cash though. That is accumulated paper assets. I know people with million dollar net worths on paper that are broke in reality. As in unable to pay their bills. Assets and liquidity are separate things.
While I understand the point of rampant enshittification and capitalism, I thought that needs some clarity.
Hasn't the USD also decreased in value since then? Actually a good way to "make more billionaires"
Yes. Yes they are.
This list doesn't include hidden wealth does it? Like Putin for example.