Individual Wealth Cap

I like to paraphrase what Bil Gates said It's mine I'd prefer to decide where its best to donate my money. Think that's partly the issue. Why would these multi-billionaires trust the government to spend their money? Not to mention now you got billions floating around in some agency where the head honcho civil servant gets to decide where it's spent, Now this civil servant is opened up to all kinds of graft and corruption. You see it all the time people embezzling church funds, police budgets city budgets, private businesses budget. Where ever money goes graft and corruption are sure to follow, along with just basic mismanagement that siphons off its potential effectiveness.

Just taking it isn't gonna work, most would just hide it or finagle ways around the cap. Not to mention it's not the government or anybody else to just take. LOL think of it on it's baser levels so my family was smart enough, industrious enough, lucky enough to accumulate this wealth, and now I have to give it to people who weren't smart enough, industrious enough or lucky enough to spend it?

I was told by someone who does financial planning for lottery winners that if the people were miserable before they won the money did nothing. They still weren't happy. It did nothing for them. If they were already happy however it did improve their life.

I believe there is a lot of truth to that observation. Money is not going to make the single mother with three jobs happy. What would make her happy is making better life choices like maybe investing in an education and putting off child raising for a while and maybe understanding how to choose men with better life prospects and values.

a reply to: butcherguy

so starting with a billion dollars doesn't lead to better decision making?

you give this a complete 0 in the natural selection in choices they would both have, and select from?

it's amazing how much more time you have to train yourself to be rich, when you're already rich.

If you put a cap on my income, I stop doing any work when I reach that amount. Why would I work more only to have the govt. take my earnings away from me?

a reply to: idiotseverywhere

What's next, individual health cap?

Oh you're too healthy, you have to donate a lung to someone with lung cancer.

Life isn't fair.... Seriously the sooner people realize that the better their life will be.
I accepted it at around 23 years old.

originally posted by: idiotseverywhere
a reply to: butcherguy

so starting with a billion dollars doesn't lead to better decision making?

you give this a complete 0 in the natural selection in choices they would both have, and select from?

it's amazing how much more time you have to train yourself to be rich, when you're already rich.

No it doesn't...

If having money made making decisions easier then most athletes would not go broke.

One study I saw said that most wealthy families lose that wealth within three generations.

originally posted by: Xcalibur254
a reply to: butcherguy
"Life has some similarity to Monopoly, but success in life is tied more to good decisions and hard work than to random chance. You make your own luck"

And that's complete bulls**t. The majority of wealth in this country is inherited.

Ummm... they didn't say wealth, they said 'success in life'. Are you saying that 'success in life' can be inherited?

Sorry, but that is, as you put it, 'complete bulls**t'.

originally posted by: JAGStorm
a reply to: idiotseverywhere

What's next, individual health cap?

Oh you're too healthy, you have to donate a lung to someone with lung cancer.

Life isn't fair.... Seriously the sooner people realize that the better their life will be.
I accepted it at around 23 years old.

Amazing how hard it is to accept that truth isn't it? Life simply is not fair...

There is always going to be someone who is smarter, faster, prettier, stronger, or just has more money than you. All you can do is play the cards you are dealt. Life very much is like a long game of monopoly.

We have people arguing for a more authoritarian form of government.

Just let that sink in for a moment.

People are actually arguing for more authoritarian government.

"Boggles it does, the mind."
-Baby Yoda

a reply to: Edumakated

nah. in my experience, I've even met several billionaires now at this point, the setup was the most essential part, and almost nothing about the person struck me as unique.

to put this into context, just having 'some advantages' is quite a big deal. 2 of them went to Harvard. this is a monumental advantage to most people. I've lost almost all faith there is even anything special about the majority of them, and the smartest person I know is still based more on how truly 'self made' they were, and they don't have a billion. meanwhile, dickhead is just born rich and is pretty mundane dude, a gaming executive that has never even played a video game. 'wow'.

a reply to: idiotseverywhere

Nope.

IMO, put taxes to 20% flat.

But no more IRS loopholes.

a reply to: DBCowboy

how much less government would you need if people couldn't just buy a bank because they got upset at the teller? you're arguing for rights of solely the 1%

Musk could have retired after Paypal. Instead he invested it and started Testla and SpacX. SpaceX in turn is going to save NASA about 75% on rocket costs. Both companies are advancing the human condition. Advancing it way more than Bernie getting his hands on it I know that much. Unless of course you believe writing bills to name post offices after people is a good use of money. I know for me, it brings me much comfort in the world knowing my post office is named after George Washington Carver...meh.

a reply to: Stupidsecrets

assuming you take the route where you work for free, for people you like, I see a method of avoiding these foreseeable issues. I would consider Musk of all people to have a similar motivation to that.

originally posted by: idiotseverywhere
a reply to: DBCowboy

how much less government would you need if people couldn't just buy a bank because they got upset at the teller? you're arguing for rights of solely the 1%

So you're saying we should not have equal application under the law, that the wealthy should not have the same rights as everyone else, and that we should punish success.

Yes.

I'm arguing for the 1% because it's not your money and it's really none of your damned business what they do with it.

originally posted by: DBCowboy
We have people arguing for a more authoritarian form of government.

Just let that sink in for a moment.

People are actually arguing for more authoritarian government.

"Boggles it does, the mind."
-Baby Yoda

That's why we should split the states in thirds. One for the people that need to be told how to live & want to be taxed up the yin yang, one for the anarchists, and the middle for everyone else. It would be kinda funny to have the anarchists living next to the need to to be told how to live people.

a reply to: Stupidsecrets

Most people who become immensely wealthy do so because they are hyper focused on a particular problem. They create something that is impactful to society and business. As a result, the become extremely wealthy.

Sure, there are some people who by being in the right place at the right time get wealthy. Think first secretary at Microsoft. I read story about a guy who painted a free mural for the first Facebook office and was given some early shares as payment since they didn't have any money. The artists shares are worth a few million.

What most people don't see though is the hustle and grind that goes into becoming very successful. They just see the end result. They don't see the broken families, missed birthdays, late nights, etc. They just see some guy with a lot of money.

It is like with pro athletes. They see the cars, women, money, and fame. What they don't see is the constant practice and training over a life time (with a big sprinkling of just being born with the right physical traits). This is why a lot guys fail.

a reply to: Edumakated

What most people don't see though is the hustle and grind that goes into becoming very successful.

I've seen it and for many it is not worth it. You are literally trading your life/family life for $$$$$$$

Because the billion dollars doesn't just sit there. It's not in a mattress. It's "working" by being invested. And if Mr. Billionaire decides he needs a fancy Yacht, someone has to build that yacht. A shipyard hires employees -- skilled labor -- to build that yacht. Or what if Mr. Billionaire decides to start SpaceX or Tesla? That is a lot of jobs - thousands of them. And for that we get an advance in technology. We reduce the cost of slinging stuff into orbit by half. We reduce the carbon footprint. Now if Musk couldn't do that, nobody else would. THAT'S how capitalism works. It's too bad so many people of limited vision react with jealousy when someone has more money than they do. You could work harder. You could come up with new ideas, if you have any at all. But it's easier to complain. It's not Musk's fault that you don't qualify for anything more than the minimum wage. If you got a degree in gender studies instead of STEM, it's your own fault.

a reply to: DBCowboy

so then the price of all trade is not exploited and never can be in a manner that would be permanent devistation at a nationwide scale? if it can be, it just seems more important to avoid that;

or is this the cost of freedom?

also, it's 0.000002%, so like 1% of 1% of 1% of 1%.

They also don't just lose all their money, all of them still have a billion dollars to just coast life away however they choose.
Do they really need 'impact point dollars' to make every single grown up decision? Can't they still do that on a scale with a Billion?