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JerryBaumchen

29% of American adults

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53 minutes ago, BIGUN said:

I'm not want to look at how super billionaires do the lords work on earth as a way to calm my concerns about how they are able to accumulate such disproportionate wealth. Suffice to say what good they do is certainly minimal in context and probably entirely tax deductible at the same time. 

I'm with you that all anger needs be to directed at policy makers, not the current beneficiaries. Of course that means no change.

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2 hours ago, BIGUN said:

I get that it's easy to hate Jeff, Bill & Elon, but they do a lot of good for the world too.

I don't hate any of those people. The fact that some of them give away some of their wealth is beside the point. You and I don't get to choose the amount we contribute or who we contribute to. We just give Caesar what he is due because we have no choice. The real problem is that there are two classes of people. People who have earned income are generally the hardest workers and pay the most as a percentage. Those who are wealthy have various forms of income that are not legally considered earned income and so they pay less. Politicians allow this because they are paid to allow it. Earning money is for suckers and we all know there is one born every minute.

Edited by gowlerk

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8 hours ago, BIGUN said:

Your beef isn't with Jeff or Bill. Congress makes the laws. Write to them. Interesting to see how the left turns on one of their own just cause he did well. I don't begrudge anyone for becoming a millionaire or multi. They were willing to chunk it all - just to try. 

Who do you think tells Congress what laws to write & pass?

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10 hours ago, timski said:

Nature is my "religion" and the planet is my place of worship.  How's that grab ya?

I can relate to that, I can relate to the person in the article as well - and that's kind of the point.

I suppose my hang up is how they're conflating the unaffiliated religious/spiritual with atheists.  And even if they made a distinction, what can you really conclude given the broad spectrum of the unaffiliated; that there's a growing number of religious/spiritual people that prefer to do church at home?

Edited by Coreece

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16 hours ago, BIGUN said:

I have said nothing about hate. Just don't think that billionaires giving a small portion of their immense wealth to issues that could be avoided by not having such a large gap between the have and have-nots, is an indication how wonderful it is to have billionaires worth $200 billion.

Plutocracy is a problem.

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5 hours ago, SkyDekker said:

I have said nothing about hate.

Apologies. Not you specifically, just in general. 25-40 years ago, Jeff & Bill chunked it all to work on their dreams which developed into a multi-billion dollar business. Both are liberals, but all of the sudden they're the antichrists'  - to the liberals!?!?!?! People start beating on Musk and I want to say, "Why do you hate immigrants?" Musk's giga-billion worth didn't occur until the last three years and it was mostly liberals buying his stock which put him there. I just don't get why people hate them, when the system they worked is the system that people placed in power. 

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1 minute ago, BIGUN said:

Apologies. Not you specifically, just in general. 25-40 years ago, Jeff & Bill chunked it all to work on their dreams which developed into a multi-billion dollar business. Both are liberals, but all of the sudden they're the antichrists'  - to the liberals!?!?!?! People start beating on Musk and I want to say, "Why do you hate immigrants?" Musk's giga-billion worth didn't occur until the last three years and it was mostly liberals buying his stock which put him there. I just don't get why people hate them, when the system they worked is the system that people placed in power. 

I admire them.

I just don't think there should be different rules for billionaires than for the rest of us.  (I can't buy senators and congressmen to make special rules for me).

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1 minute ago, kallend said:

I admire them.

I agree.

2 minutes ago, kallend said:

I just don't think there should be different rules for billionaires than for the rest of us.  (I can't buy senators and congressmen to make special rules for me).

No argument. 

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8 minutes ago, BIGUN said:

I just don't get why people hate them, when the system they worked is the system that people placed in power. 

I think people might hate them because they are a personal manifestation of that system. Nothing good comes from accumulating the majority of wealth in the hands of a very few, IMHO of course.

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10 hours ago, kallend said:

I admire them.

 

Me too, however the system is broken for them to be able to accumulate that much wealth, where nurses and teachers who work just as hard, struggle even to get by.

There's this perception that these guys have worked hard and earnt those billions, which really just demonstrates how little people really understand what a billion is. To those people it's really just a number - they are so far past the point of being able to afford literally anything that it's insane, and generally they are inflating that number at the expense of the minimum wage folks at the bottom - particularly bezos.

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On 12/15/2021 at 11:56 AM, BIGUN said:

Your beef isn't with Jeff or Bill. Congress makes the laws. ...

Yes and thats why people that have a hard on for them are just not being fair. If statutes allow business to shield income. Common practice suggests any responsible business should take advantage of those tax breaks. The same for the owners.

On 12/15/2021 at 1:05 PM, kallend said:

Jeff and Bill and their cronies include Congress in their investments.

Ok But The USSC ruled again and again to allow unrestricted lobbying. Americans have had the opportunity to vote on lobbying. The opportunity to vote on kicking out congressmen who are beholden to certain industries.  Americans have refused to seriously address it.

2 hours ago, Stumpy said:

Me too, however the system is broken for them to be able to accumulate that much wealth, where nurses and teachers who work just as hard, struggle even to get by.

There's this perception that these guys have worked hard and earnt those billions, which really just demonstrates how little people really understand what a billion is. To those people it's really just a number - they are so far past the point of being able to afford literally anything that it's insane, and generally they are inflating that number at the expense of the minimum wage folks at the bottom - particularly bezos.

Amazon doesn't employ nurses and teachers. They pay warehouse workers more than minimum wage. Bezos does however use monopoly advantages unfairly. Using insider information against his own private business customers. Once again US laws tackling monopolies is weak. What laws exist are unenforced.

America is fortunate to have people and their associated business like Gates, Bezos, Musk, etc. I admire all of them. But American acceptance of lobbying and unfair tax laws is destroying its social fabric.

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6 hours ago, Stumpy said:

Me too, however the system is broken for them to be able to accumulate that much wealth, where nurses and teachers who work just as hard, struggle even to get by.

That's a feature, not a bug.  The idea that you could make billions by switching the US from gas to electric cars will (and has) inspired other people to follow in his footsteps.  Same thing for reusable rockets, and lithium ion batteries, and computers, and vaccines.  All things that have helped us progress - and all things that people made billions off.

That is a system that is working well.  There are a lot of inequities, which is a different problem we have to solve.

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58 minutes ago, billvon said:

That's a feature, not a bug.  The idea that you could make billions by switching the US from gas to electric cars will (and has) inspired other people to follow in his footsteps.  Same thing for reusable rockets, and lithium ion batteries, and computers, and vaccines.  All things that have helped us progress - and all things that people made billions off.

That is a system that is working well.  There are a lot of inequities, which is a different problem we have to solve.

Of course the same system has also shown you can make billions getting the world addicted to opioids.

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59 minutes ago, SkyDekker said:

Of course the same system has also shown you can make billions getting the world addicted to opioids.

Yes, that's an example of the system not working well.

Capitalism - like communism, socialism, libertarianism, any -ism really - can be great in principle.  Looks good on paper.  In its pure forms, they are all toxic.  But well regulated, capitalism can work very well indeed.

Note that the companies involved with the opioid crisis are now facing billions in fines, and the people involved are facing years in jail.  A good half dozen companies have been dissolved in the aftermath.  That's a pretty powerful disincentive to any executives considering such approaches in the future.

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1 minute ago, billvon said:

Note that the companies involved with the opioid crisis are now facing billions in fines, and the people involved are facing years in jail.  A good half dozen companies have been dissolved in the aftermath.  That's a pretty powerful disincentive to any executives considering such approaches in the future.

Nobody from the Sackler family will go to jail. 

I absolutely don't think that personally making billions before a company goes bankrupt is a disincentive for anybody. Quite frankly don't understand why you think it is.

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3 minutes ago, ryoder said:

That's civil and shielded them from being sued in civil court. Their wealth is already shielded I am sure. You leave a couple $100 million unshielded for people to fight over and you keep a few $billion for yourself.

No Sackler family member is going to jail and none of them are going to be destitute.

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40 minutes ago, billvon said:

and the people involved are facing years in jail. 

None of the people in prison for drug crimes were ever billionaires. And no billionaires will go there. Not even the foreign drug lords were ever that rich. On the other hand many were known for acts of charity.

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Well, some of our billionaires are also big in charity.

The thing is, even if you sign the 90% pledge, as a billionaire, that means a minimum of 100 million in worth. Which is a lot. Not billionaire rich, but really, really, rich nevertheless.

Wendy P.

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18 hours ago, SkyDekker said:

...No Sackler family member is going to jail and none of them are going to be destitute.

Of course not. Anyone who thinks that has never studied justice. Justice is for the little guy. The Black teenager who gets 10 years for selling a couple joints.

"Sitting in her jail cell this week, Patricia Spottedcrow couldn’t imagine where she was going to get the money she needed for her release.

In 2010, the young Oklahoma mother, who had been caught selling $31 worth of marijuana to a police informant after financial troubles caused her to lose her home, was sentenced to 12 years in prison. It was her first-ever offense,"

The Sackler family are white collar drug dealers.

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