1年前

World’s richest people added $852 billion to their fortunes in the first half of 2023

english.elpais.com World’s richest people added $852 billion to their fortunes in the first half of 2023

Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg increased their net worth by $96.6 billion and $58.9 billion, respectively, thanks to rising share prices on the Nasdaq

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Tax the rich a lot. There really shouldn't be billionaires.
- There’s no good reason for that level of hoarding beyond need. Waste of the use of money. If there’s enough money to feed everyone and we can’t, there’s something wrong here.
  
  That’s not a liquid cash though
- Related: poor are more food insecure and savings amounts decreased
- They have won life. Give them a Medal, then take away all they have so they can start a NewLife+
  
  Once someone hits $999,999,999.99, we should give them a trophy that says "Congrats, you win capitalism" and then ~~banish~~ send them to an island ~~prison~~ paradise where ~~they are hunted for sport~~ all their needs are met, 24h a day.

So... Is "eat the rich" still a thing?
- I don't want to eat Elon Musk's flabby ass. I propose we just "beat" the rich, so that they're afraid to walk around in public.
  
  We should hang them up like piñatas and beat them until the money trickles down
  
  We could always cheat the rich... out of all their money and distribute it to the poor.
  
  We should hang them up like piñatas and beat them until the money trickles down
  
  We should hang them up like piñatas and beat them until the money trickles down
- Welcome to the revolution.

I have mixed feelings about measuring their wealth based on share prices because they couldn't sell their shares without tanking the price, right? Elon didn't actually increase his wealth; just the value of something that he has a shitton of went up.
We could also tank the value of his stocks by not buying or using his stupid shit!. For example, anyone angry that he is rich should definitely not be using Twitter.
"Eat the rich"... blah blah blah. Much easier to just protest the rich and take our money back by not giving it or our time to the rich in the first place.
- Much easier to just protest the rich and take our money back
  That's pretty much what eat the rich means lol
  Difference is you think it can be done simply by not spending our money with them, when in reality, like others have pointed out, they've not only made that not matter (because they can get more money anyway), and left us no choice (we can't all run off and live in the woods, and if we're not spending our money on one billionaire's products, we're spending it on another's), but they also have the police as their guard dogs, as well as governments who control militaries under their thumb, not to mention their own private militias and defences and bunkers and all that jazz.
  So the only way it actually can be done (protesting the rich and getting our money back, that is), because they have left us no choice, is by force - 'When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich'
  
  I respect your opinion, but I worry that it'll lead to violence, which doesn't really solve anything.
- They don’t need to sell to realize gains - they take out loans against the stock value from banks for almost no interest. If they choose to, they could get large amounts of that paper gain in liquid cash through just a handful of steps.
  
  they take out loans against the stock value from banks for almost no interest. If they choose to,
  Those days are coming to an end though...
  
  Yeah, someone else mentioned that. That's bullshit.
- I have mixed feelings about measuring their wealth based on share prices because they couldn’t sell their shares without tanking the price, right?
  Technically this is true, but remember that the wealthy can borrow money backed up by their stocks, so no: they couldn't sell those stocks without tanking the price, but yes: they have access to even more money because of this.
  
  Ohhh!! That makes sense. Goddamn the wealthy, lol
- I think you're exactly right. Social media is just the first thing we should be federating. Next should be farming, manufacturing, timber, construction, shipping, sales, and energy. If we crowdsource our solutions while using logic and algorithms to enforce quality control, we can exceed efficiency of the greedy ruling class and share profits among everyone who contributes so contributor ever faces starvation or living on the streets.
  The billionaires can hoarde all the resources they want. If the masses stop contributing to their system, they will find that endless consumption is not as competitive as true justice and fairness.
  
  You should check out the book "Daemon" by Daniel Suarez (if you haven't already). Based on your post, you'd probably like it a lot. There's a sequel, too: "Freedom".
- Shhh… this is Lemmy

lol but inflation is being caused by poor people demanding higher wages, right?

Didn't their total wealth drop significantly last year because FB and TSLA stock absolutely tanked? So their wealth is only up so much because it was down more and the market is on it's way back up.
By all means eat the rich and all that, but this doesn't paint an honest picture for anyone who doesn't follow the stock market.
- I didn't read the article, just the headline, but both can be true. They lost money but made a ton again. It's no different than someone losing a huge amount in a 401k but then having even more money in the future by not selling and the market going back up.
- Yeah, unopened the post and it's just "due to riding NASDAQ prices" and it's like okay. Basically just like saying my wealth increased because house prices rose. It's not a lie or anything but the title imies there was a change of assets rather than a change of valuation of assets.

They could have instead made 852,000 new millionaires or 8.52 million people could have a cool $100,000 to save for retirement or pay off debt. But the rich get richer.

Ugh. I just ate breakfast and this makes me regret it.
- Next time, eat the rich.
- Eat beans?
  
  Beans for breakfast? Do you think I'm a filthy British person? On American Independence Day? How dare you!

I am convinced I'd be a terrible rich asshole. I'd never be able to hold on to that much money considering how fucked up the world is. That said, I have a conscience. Lacking one seems to be a prerequisite.
- Hoarding wealth is like any other form.of hoarding. Its a mental illness.
  If there was a monkey in the jungle somewhere who had stockpiled enough bananas, through killing other monkeys or other exploitative means, to last a thousand lifetimes and refused to share any, we would study that monkey like crazy to figure out WTF is going on there.
  When a person does it and someone points out that its fucked, we say that the person pointing it out is just jealous, and if they only worked harder, they too could be sitting on a banana fortune.

meanwhile, people are dying of starvation and malnuritionment

So in 6 months he can buy 2 Twitters...
- Pretty sure he could buy 10+ twitters by now, that cesspool's real value must have crashed hard since his acquisition
- He can buy Reddit at this rate...

Seems like a totally fair and appropriate system to me. Let poor people starve. Better yet, just hide them somewhere I don't have to see them. That'd be awesome. /s

Great.
When's dinner?

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