Billionaires don't "work". At least not in the sense that they get some amount of money that's in any way in relation to the value they create. They shuffle around money to do things for them and sometimes that makes them more money. Calling that "work" lessens the meaning of that word and gives them too much credit.
They make more money because they already have so much money. At those levels, the money makes itself.
No they don't really do that either, they pay people to do it for them.
It's also impossible to work hard enough to "earn" a billion dollars. Billionaires are billionaires because they stole the wages and wealth from the workers who helped them succeed. None of them "earned" it because it's literally impossible to be such a good worker that you're worth a billion.
They shuffle around money to do things for them and sometimes that makes them more money.
Slight clarification: they pay people to shuffle money around to make them more money. It's all automated at this point to ensure they don't have to do anything.
I remember this study done:
"Today's rich families in Florence, Italy, were rich 700 years ago"
https://www.vox.com/2016/5/18/11691818/barone-mocetti-florence
The only German in the top 10 of the richest Germans that didn't inherit that spot is the founder of Biontec - and while he did a great job there it's just sheer luck that the pandemic hit when it did
Water is wet.
The sky is blue.
Yachts are an indefensible source of carbon emissions.
Incoming Republicans who live in a trailer park to get upset at you over talking shit about something only the rich own
I mean, if you inherit a billion dollars, that's more money than you will ever earn in several lifetimes of actual work... so yeah.
It's closer to more money than your entire extended family will earn in the next 50-100 generations of your family combined.
Good spirit in your comment, but it demonstrates the fundamental disconnect in how humans perceive vast sums of wealth. A YouTube personality, Tom Scott, did one of the best jobs I've seen of making this concept digestible for people, worth a watch: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8YUWDrLazCg
that's more money than you will ever earn in several lifetimes of actual work.
Imagine you earn 20 dollars an hour, ten hours a day, work five days a week, two weeks vacation so that's 50 weeks a year.
20 x 10 x 5 x 50 = 50,000 per year. All your expenses are covered for some reason.
To earn a million dollars you would need to work 20 years.
To earn a billion dollars you would need to work 20,000 years.
To be as rich as Elon Musk is now, you would need to work ~~3.7~~ 4.28 million years .
e: updated Musk number.
Look, I hate to say it but Elon earned his money by working 370,000 times harder than the rest of us
It seems like there is definitely an upper limit to the amount of money you can make from actual work. That doesn't seem fair
That doesn't seem fair
Ya don't say
If you earn $100 an hour, and worked every day for 8 hours, and never spent anything, you'd have to have been working since 1400BC to earn a billion dollars.
If you stacked all the billionaires in the world, head to toe, starting at the bottom of the Mariana Trench... it'd be a start.
Of course they do. It's simple math.
There was a study on ownership in London's wealthy "City of London" district about 10 years ago which found most of it had been in the same families for several hundred years.
Seriously. They have a multi-generational culture of hoarding as much wealth as possible.
It would be an embarrassment if any of their offspring lost their wealth considering how many safeguards are put in place to protect it.
The problem is that wealth correlates directly with power in the West. You'll never see a Western billionaire get Jack Ma'd, and that's the problem: Western billionaires have less accountability and more rights than the average citizen.
Jack Ma didn't get knocked down because he's rich.
It was because he pissed off the CPC.
Not that I want to defend any mega-rich person, but he seemed to be using the influence that his wealth allowed him to speak out against actual oppressors.
Yeah, democracy my ass lol
You're saying that like it's a unique problem to the West. Do you think Asian billionaires don't have extra rights and latitude?
The rich typically hate welfare...unless that welfare is unearned wealth passed down to children.
Hey!! My dad worked very hard to inherit his wealth from his father, so I should benefit from that too! - billionaires
That statement is true for **every ** generation of billionaires, not just the current one.
Musk, Gates, Bezos, and Zuckerberg all had multi millionaire parents that gave them "small loans" that catapulted them to billionaires. Now their fortunes, made in our lifetime by the labor of others, will be locked up for the next 400 years while people starve or die of preventable and treatable diseases.
Edit: Removed a raping skunk.
Will be locked up for the next 400 years while people starve or die of preventable and treatable diseases.
It really doesn't have to be. The French figured this out a long time ago.
The French also existed within the same reality that they could agree on.
The right and left in America might as well be living in alternative realities... On the right they'll defend this to the death, they'll fight for Bezos as he crushes their local economies and they'll lick musks boots as long as he keeps "sticking it to the libs."
Why is this a surprise, exactly?
It still needs to be repeated over and over since people are absolutely opposing a higher inheritance tax thinking it would influence them inheriting their grandma's house because that's how those populists are usually spinning it...
Ikr? Everyone today grinding for that "generational wealth" and I honestly don't see why. Do people really want more spoiled brats in the world?
Life kinda sucks, wealth insulates you from the worst of it, and affords you more opportunities.
If you're rich you can become an actor, poet, artist, writer, athlete, journalist, doctor, academic, etc. No coincidence that people in these fields are disproportionately from well off families who were able to support them.
Without wealth, a lot of those careers and opportunities are closed to you, and you end up doing dead end jobs, even if you have far more potential. Not that surprising that rich people who love their kids (and grandkids) would want them to have that opportunity.
Of course, too much money can also fuck you over, so perhaps Bill Gates has the right idea in not giving his children too much, and donating most of his wealth.
It's also quite obviously not fair. Some fields are dominated by defacto aristocracy, and it is to the detriment of society that it isn't truly meritocratic, but I get why their parents want to give them that opportunity.
You seem to be mistaking a chance to give your family a place to live with whatever the fuck a billion is supposed to offer them.
"work". Well, i guess it's networking.
Imagine working so hard, you end up getting birthed by a billionaire! Keep pulling those bootstraps peasants!
Please sign up for thislifelong debt subscription service for a threadbare set of bootstraps that have a limited lifetime warranty and will break due to non covered reasons.
Inheritance tax urge to the redistribution of the wealth.
If it was for me i would abolish Inheritance entirely. The problem is i cannot imagine a non-dictatorial type of system that could make it work. You would have to make presents illegal, and other things like this. If anybody knows a solution please let me know and they got my vote
edit: a letter
I think a scaling inheritance tax that accounts for all assets could work
I don't think inheritance should be illegal, but there should be a wealth cap.
Next generation of billionaires ... from inheritance
Sure must be nice to have that to look forward to in life.
Is it different for the current generation?
A community for discussing events around the World
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/