The program works as programmed. The name of the program is capitalism. They are cogs in the machine just like we all are. The difference is, they are rotating in a different position in the machine.
Hoarding wasn’t allowed at one time, in <150 person groups, then came the ever increasing wealth and power inequalities, and the supernatural stories to justify their power, justify the suffering now for later reward and easier than brute force. It’s the same systems and people protecting their wealth and keep the majority in artificial scarcity, so they feel frazzled and not much time to ponder these truths, and decide how they want to go forward, keep the indoctrination of the systems or pull back the curtain?
More info: The “frazzled” state you describe is literally chronic cortisol dysregulation — the body’s stress response stuck on. Research confirms this drives insulin resistance, visceral fat accumulation, arterial stiffness, immune suppression, gut dysbiosis, and prefrontal cortex damage (impaired planning, impulse control). When someone says “I just can’t get my health together,” the framework gives them a different explanation: you’re running a fight-or-flight response 16 hours a day because the system is designed to keep you in survival mode. That reframe reduces shame and opens the door to action.
the sin of avararice…
You have to cut out such sickness.
Guillotine is the gracious choice to traitors.
The dragon disease.
Billionitis
How much revenue would that tax generate?
665 million just from what Brin gained just since Trump took office again alone
That’s it? It’s a start, I guess…
Did you miss the part where this is from one person, and only the money he made in the time that trump has been in office? I CBA to look up what it would actually make or how much wealth is held by billionaires on California.
Of course I didn’t. I just could be assed to do some basic math and see how little that is.
California’s budget is hundreds of billions.
Well considering my individual taxes are such an insufficient portion of my governments total spending I shouldn’t have to pay them at all then.
Weird take, but okay.
That’s what I thought, but here we are.
Hey look, it’s another fucking foreigner who came over and stole from Americans and now refuses to pay his fair share
So… If he were a domestic born sociopath, his greed would be acceptable? Or if he spread the wealth with Americans, his foreign crimes and wealth extraction would be fine?
Don’t bring nationalism into the class war. The entire overarching goal should be to improve the lives of everyone, everywhere. Not let nations extract and hoard wealth from “others”, or allow “others” to be exploited for our benefit. If you believe otherwise, then you’re no different to the sociopathic parasites.
No, there is no excuse for trash like him. But if you can weaponize the hatred of the ignorant to help your cause, you should.
Yeah… you just proved you’re closer to an authoritarian tankie sociopath than you are to giving a shit about the working class.
The goal should be to enlighten the ignorant. Not fucking “weaponise” them, you donut. The whole problem is that they’ve been “weaponised” by capital.
At the expense of immigrants that aren’t obscenely wealthy? How does that make anything better? There are endless other ways to call out this garbage. Pick one that doesn’t needlessly harm those that are already hurting.
You’re being downvoted, and I just wanted to let you know I agree with you completely. It’s the billionaire class that’s the problem, not their nationality. It’s a worldwide problem, not just an American one, because they export their bullshit to whatever country they choose (e.g. Musk in Germany). Borders no longer matter for these people, they can move wherever they want, buy politicians in every country they want.
It’s a global class war.
It’s power.
Not wealth.
He’d rather kids not get healthcare than be told he is a plebe that has to follow rules like the rest of us.
It’s hoarding. It’s never enough to have a lot of money, they need to have all the money. Being a billionaire is a significant sign of mental illness.
bernie kinda misses the essence of american culture.
a bum on welfare is a freeloader because they take and take and contribute nothing.
what has this guy, sergey, actually contributed to america? we had 34830483048 search engines before google came around.
when your money makes money you contribute nothing other than offerings to the abstract concept of ‘the economy.’
it’s genuinely satanic when you really think about it. we’re sacrificing real human lives to ‘the economy.’
a bum on welfare is a freeloader because they take and take and contribute nothing.
Some people who need assistance have worked for years, thus putting money into medicaid.
This is what’s really crazy.
A long time ago, I was having a conversation with a workmate. Guy earned as much as me. I asked him what he’d buy with $1 billion that he couldn’t buy with $50 million.
He couldn’t name one actual experience/object that he’d need the extra money for.
Still insisted that he wanted the billion.
I’d buy a few of your countries, a space company/rocket ships. A few nukes or the facility to make them…
Oh wait that’s exactly what they did with that money.
It’s what you would do, too.
Which is why no one should be allowed to have that much. Not even nation states as we’ve seen.
It’s what you would do, too.
The fuck it is. Speak for yourself.
Super-yachts.
One of the main reasons these are booming is that a billionaire can spend a sum on them he might actually see on his account. Fine food, cars, even mainsons are so cheap that they earn more through passive income while they’re buying these things than they’re actually spending. At the same time people, even in tje ver same society, go hungry to bed or are incapable of getting their health condition improved… it’s just crazy.
Evil rather than crazy
Sounds like super yachts need to be sunk.
Easy, 1000x more LEGOs.
Woah op said billions, not trillions
You could step on a LEGO for every step the rest of your life.
It used to be philanthropic stuff - because buying public opinion/legacy is pretty expensive. So you fund a big charity, do some speeches, and are celebrated for being so generous. Has the side effect of actually helping some poors.
Seems like the major expenses now are donating money to fascists and buying big boats.
But $1B (at today’s levels of value - the number isn’t the issue, the relative value and lost opportunity cost of distributing some of this back to the people is the issue) is an obscene amount of money. You could invest it in some safe asset making 2% per year and yearn $54k per day ($20M/year)
Have they ever done philanthropy that wasn’t for avoiding taxes or laundering money?
The reputational aspect is definitely a big part of it - they want to be seen and remembered a certain way. Bill Gates is a good example, but he blew all that up by raping children (maybe). Before the Gates Foundation, he was viewed by the public as a typical evil miserly cutthroat businessman who was also a weird nerd. Gates Foundation & making sure everyone knew about it did a lot to sway public opinion.
And the actual people at the Gates Foundation did great work - they helped to control and eradicate deadly diseases in the global South. But it isn’t like Bill was doing that work, he was just allowing someone to cut the checks.
And it allows them to avoid taxes. They choose to pay bribes to politicians instead of paying taxes & to continue to not pay taxes.
Melinda Gates has done a lot with the Gates Foundation. I personally have been mostly funded by them for most of my career. This includes many failed attempts in some areas, and in others lead to new vaccines for meningitis for epidemic response and routine use. There are many other amazing things the foundation has funded, but that is the success I have directly been a part of.
Yes
Still insisted that he wanted the billion.
That demonstrates the underlying problem. When you can quantify something, people can compete over it. To most people money is THE quantifiable thing about humans. We literally call a person’s money number their “net worth.” It’s not “oh that guy with all these relationships and virtues and vices has just seen his net assets exceed one billion.” It is “he is now worth one billion.”
So with it carrying such cultural weight and such quantifiability… I guess what I am trying to say is that sometimes the problem really as is simple as “number go up.” Unfortunately, simple problems can still have impossibly complex solutions. How do you change the nature of a person, and then do it en masse? How do you break one feedback loop and get into another? (the people in control would make society more decent if they themselves grew up in a more decent society)
Power.
Not a nicer car. Not a better vacation. Not a bigger house.
The ability to buy companies, fund institutions, shape industries, influence politics, and absorb enormous losses without changing your lifestyle.
At a certain point, more money stops buying a better life. It starts buying more control.
The ability to use money as a weapon
For us that just means putting 2 to 5 lbs of loose change in a thick sock. =\
If you gave me the choice between 50 million and a billion I’d take a billion too; but if you gave me 50 million no one would hear from me again as I would quit my job, move somewhere quiet, and keep to myself.
I wouldn’t quit my work with 50 million. I’d turn it into a big corp then invest in more. I’d likely work just as much but it would be to make more cash to invest into more companies so I can see my own agenda play out in ways I want.
Someone that would fuck off with 50 million would fuck off with 5 million and that’s exactly why you won’t ever have that opportunity.
That’s not me saying it’s a bad thing that you’re like that, just the reality of how some people think.
You’re part of the problem.
“If I had a horde of money I’d try to make it an ever bigger horde so I could tell people what to do.”
Yes, that exact attitude is the problem with billionaires and why simply being a billionaire is a sign of mental illness, because people without a hording disorder will fuck off long before they get to a billion.
Just for clarity’s sake.
The question was ‘What can you buy with a billion that you couldn’t get with $50 million?’
Right, but you said they insisted they wanted the billion. I’d want the billion too, but if I had 50 million I wouldn’t be complaining that I didn’t have a billion.
Rebuild all the schools in my local district? Set up a permanent endowment for the Freedom from Religion Foundation? Turn as much land into nature preserves as I can possibly afford?
Maybe these aren’t “things” you “buy” but it doesn’t take much creativity to blow a billion. I think I just blew a whole bunch of them.
You’d never make it to a billion with that kind of attitude
If, given the option, I would want the larger sum of money, too.
But I could also feed and educate a fuckton of people while still living it up on roughly 4%.
He’s wrong, greed isn’t a sickness, it’s a mental handicap. It inhibits the brain from experiencing empathy in people who amass great wealth and power.
It begs the question, why are we letting a bunch of evil, mentally handicapped people steer the course of humanity?
You’d think that if you were a doctor, and had a patient that was amassing a collection of any other thing, and that collection destroyed a part of their patients brain… You’d think the doctor (and society et. large) would want to limit the amount of that thing they were allowed to collect?
Especially if that thing they’re collecting could be used to, oh I dunno, I’m just spit-balling here, give everyone universal healthcare, increase public education to include 4 year university, give everyone free childcare, invest massively in green energy and public transportation… you know, instead of just sitting in a Panamanian bank being hoarded by evil, mentally handicapped billionaires?
He should be beaten to a pulp with a sign that reads “Don’t be evil”
This type of k shape economy is what ends world Powers. Not just that but the sheer decay from the ground up of our economy. Cut education, less educated population. Out source jobs, people can’t afford to live and are now dependent on government assistance. The loss of the middle class, can keep going
I hope that before it gets that far the guillotine gets reintroduced
You think they’re bad now? In five years, several will be trillionaires, and many more will be on the way. Once they get to Trillionaire Status, there is no stopping them. They’ll create their own sovereign nation, create an army, and start to control the world.
They’ve already staked out their base of operations: Ivanka & Jared’s new Albanian island, which is fortified with miles of bunkers, literally built to withstand a NATO attack. It also has the advantage of controlling a strait that is vital to all Eastern European trade. It’s the perfect place for a scam(1) of Sociopathic Billionaires to make their HQ, and rule the world.
BTW, Ivanka was first introduced to the island while she was cruising on a Rothschilds yacht. La-di-da.
(1) Collective name of a group Sociopathic Oligarchs.
