The ongoing X and Elon Musk Transgressions Thread

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Just a guy

Amazing, somehow saying they are dysfunctional and not what I would ever be is bootlegging. Maybe come up with counter points and I'll take you seriously.

I understand that you feel a certain amount of money is too much for any one person. My original point is that most people don't understand what it takes to get there and ultimately are incapable of doing so. I know that I am not nor would I want to be knowing the price.

I know for a fact they do not work, say, 1000x harder than I do, or 10000x harder than a TFW picking fruit. Stop pretending they have some massive value to society, they do not. Some, hold on to your seat, even have a pretty giant negative effect.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Just a guy

Several issues. Define wealth. Is it free cash? Most wealth is held in form of stocks, which is only obtained when selling the stock. If they sell the stock, then reinvest it in other stocks,which you or anyone else can buy (not their original company) is that okay? Or do they need to sell these as well?

It is really perspective. I know people that if you say you make $100k per year would consider you rich. Their line could be that if your net worth is say $2M, then you need to redistribute your wealth. Is that okay? If not why not?

You say it is a problem. People invest in these companies and gain on the way up. I would guess most on this board have these investments. Stop the 65 people in Canada and then who are you going to invest in?

Without digging, assume the top 100 are worth $4B each on average. That totals $400B. The other 38.6M average $330k net worth or total $11T. So where is the concentration? They have about 5% of the wealth in Canada.

I don't see it as a problem as investors (you and I) ride their coat tails up and are happy to do so.

They would be taxed 4%-5% plus inflation on all total wealth regardless of form. So a person worth 5 billion would face a 250 million dollar tax bill. How they pay it is up to them. This tax would disappear once wealth dropped below 1 billion. In theory this creates an incentive to put perform the average market performance as otherwise they lose wealth.

Did you just suggest that 100 people or .00025% of the population having 5% of the wealth not being concentration? That’s an odd statement. The problem that causes concentration is that a large portion of annual income is spent or will be spent on living whereas in a high net worth individual it doesn’t get spent and accumulated capital. So overtime the high net worth individual continues to accumulate while regular people spend and many end up near zero at death or a few million. So overtime the HNWs gain a greater and greater portion of wealth.

This eventually leads to revolution of left unchecked as an ultimate worst case scenario.

I think the number could be debated. In the capitalist system by having different wages for different things it causes the work force to be properly allocated to where needed without centralized planning. It also incentivizes people to work to perform the required work of society. It also incentivize people to take risk and create. The hard core UBI people will argue that money is not a motivator at all but I’m not oone of those people. So you could put the number at what ever value maintains the incentives of capitalism required to have the creation element.

So if you capped it at 2 million I think you would encourage too many people to retire early in important positions and people in retirement wouldn’t be able to maintain lifestyles they had while working. You can see how 2 million is different right. Now when someone says why not 100 million I think arguments could be made for or against that value.

You say you want to invest in these people Look at the Thomson’s and the Irving’s and these mega rich families. Are you sure you want to invest in the children of these initial billionaires? Secondly I think you mistake the initial thing that made them a billionaire vs them continuing to be a billionaire. We are watching it in real time with musk. He made 100s of millions pre-Tesla and space X. Invested those hundreds of millions and became a billionaire and now is in his decline days spending money on Twitter to make 69 jokes. He and his heirs fo not need 100 billion in perpetuity generating money without requiring any meaningful contribution. Society doesn’t benefit at that point.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by Just a guy

My take. I have had the opportunity to know people from welfare families to ultra rich (>$1B) and many in between. How I see the differences.

Everyman:
• Target quality of life
• Enjoy family and friends
• Work within specified times/norms
• Want equality of outcome
• Satisfied with being successful within your station

Billionaire:
• No concept of quality of life (They have toys and time, but are always working)
• Every ultra rich person I know have almost no family life and very dysfunctional relationships
• If they are awake, they are working.
• Believes in personal responsibility and consequences/rewards
• Does not see barriers. Sees opportunities

Everyman wants to enjoy the benefits of the sacrifices the Billionaire without making the same sacrifices. “Billionaire makes too much money and I should have some of it”. Even if you say you don’t, taxing them higher than yourself means you get the benefits of government programs disproportionately.

I believe it is ridiculous to say that once you have achieved a certain arbitrary amount of wealth, that you should ultimately lose control of what you spent your life building and ultimately by giving up what Everyman holds dear.

Does anyone think that limiting growth (taking control away from the founder) for a particular company would be good? Think what brand of vehicle you drive. All started by an eventual ultra rich person. No personal brand names will get you Lada’s or Yugo’s (Yay Communism!!). How about the computer or phone you use? Where would the world be without Bill Gates or Steve Jobs? Both great examples of what I point out above, but allow Everyman to enjoy life better than before they intervened.

Of all the people on this board, I would guess the majority work for someone else. I would guess that they are fine the owner making money off of their efforts. If not then they should start their own company and charge what the market will bear and suffer the down times and enjoy the up times. The issues seem to be that one person needs to have an arbitrary limit on the number of people they can make money off of. Even though each and everyone makes the decision to work for someone else as mentioned above.

For clarity, I was raised in a very poor family and worked hard and taken risks to achieve a reasonably comfortable life. I am related to a person that is among the 100 wealthiest people in Canada and have personally seen what they have given up to get to that place. Not for me! End rant

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs did do something great in the 70s/80s when they created their companies. After that point - there is a decent argument that their companies huge wealth stifles innovation because you can't compete with them. Is iOS the best phone operating system we could have? Probably not - but no company outside of Google and other huge tech companies have any chance to compete in that market.

Joe Schmo could build the next huge innovation in his garage right now - he'd either immediately get bought out by one of those huge companies or get crushed by them when they copy what he does and then uses their massive capital to make him unable to compete in the market.

[Just a guy]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

I know for a fact they do not work, say, 1000x harder than I do, or 10000x harder than a TFW picking fruit. Stop pretending they have some massive value to society, they do not. Some, hold on to your seat, even have a pretty giant negative effect.

So using your logic, do you work 10 times as hard as a TFW? If not then you are in the wrong.
It is called value of the work performed. Are lawyers worth what they charge? Go through all the professions and ask the same question. They do not wotk 5 times (arbitrary ratio) than the standard person. We value that work and pay for it accordingly.

[dobbles]

This hard work angle is just absurd. And don't forget, for a lot of jobs you are paying for the years of training and experience it took them to get there. Which is reasonable. But to imply that these CEO's somehow have training and experience worth 1000 times their peers, thats absurd. And to imply that flying around to hob knob with other elites is working harder than the average laborer? Again, absurd.

[Just a guy]

Originally Posted by PeteMoss

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs did do something great in the 70s/80s when they created their companies. After that point - there is a decent argument that their companies huge wealth stifles innovation because you can't compete with them. Is iOS the best phone operating system we could have? Probably not - but no company outside of Google and other huge tech companies have any chance to compete in that market.

Joe Schmo could build the next huge innovation in his garage right now - he'd either immediately get bought out by one of those huge companies or get crushed by them when they copy what he does and then uses their massive capital to make him unable to compete in the market.

This is an argument about competition. I agree that we need regulation for this.
Ultimately Joe Schmo would have a decision to make and who am I or anyone to say that he shouldn't secure his future when he can. Some people take the money and some don't. It is when the companies become monopolies that it becomes an issue and should be regulated.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Just a guy

So using your logic, do you work 10 times as hard as a TFW? If not then you are in the wrong.
It is called value of the work performed. Are lawyers worth what they charge? Go through all the professions and ask the same question. They do not wotk 5 times (arbitrary ratio) than the standard person. We value that work and pay for it accordingly.

LOL, no not at all. Because I think they are underpaid. But I don't think everyone should get the same pay, either. I just know that on the upper end, it's totally out of whack with reality.

[Just a guy]

Originally Posted by dobbles

This hard work angle is just absurd. And don't forget, for a lot of jobs you are paying for the years of training and experience it took them to get there. Which is reasonable. But to imply that these CEO's somehow have training and experience worth 1000 times their peers, thats absurd. And to imply that flying around to hob knob with other elites is working harder than the average laborer? Again, absurd.

Didn't say it was. Read that what I say, which is these guys give up their lives to obtain these goals. Again not for me as the price is too high.

People get rich because other people value their services. Don't like it don't use them.

[marsplasticeraser]

Originally Posted by GGG

They would be taxed 4%-5% plus inflation on all total wealth regardless of form. So a person worth 5 billion would face a 250 million dollar tax bill. How they pay it is up to them. This tax would disappear once wealth dropped below 1 billion. In theory this creates an incentive to put perform the average market performance as otherwise they lose wealth.

The issue is that it's too easy to evade taxation. Ultra HNW already shield their assets in corporations in tax havens, but for personal taxation it's simply too easy move to where they pay less/no tax.

It's why Britain's richest man lives in Monaco, even though he owns a massive UK business.

Even guys with 'only' $100m move to tax free jurisdictions. Dave Portnoy of One Bite Pizza fame spends 6 months of the year in Florida to claim that as his taxation residence.

Even if somehow all developed countries had a tax on billionaires (which will never happen), Billionaires can just move to an island nation for their primary residence, and spend a month or two in London, Paris, NYC, Tokyo, San Fran and evade local taxation.

I don't see an easy way to eliminate loopholes, though I suppose you could make access to a country's market dependent on profits staying subject to that countries personal taxation laws, but eventually that means less access to capital for Canadian businesses, which could suck.

You'd also need someway to ensure when equity in a business is sold there is local taxation, which I think would be hard. For example, if I start an oil company in Alberta that extracts Alberta resources, but own the stock in this company through a Cayman Island numbered company, when I sell my company, the money never comes through Alberta, so there is no tax paid.

[Red Slinger]

Originally Posted by Just a guy

People get rich because other people value their services. Don't like it don't use them.

Not true. Most people are rich because they inherent their wealth.

Those that actually created wealth like Gates, Buffett and Jobs had the right product, in the right place at the right time. Once they got rich, in order to get really rich, they generally had to lie, cheat, steal or take advantage of others. Once they got really rich due to their skill, hard work, luck, and lack of scruples, they took advantage of a system designed to benefit the wealthy because...and you'll never believe this...the system is set up (i.e. rigged) by the wealthy and for the wealthy largely on the backs of the poor and middle-class who are paying more than their fair share in taxes.

Please tell me in today's world how we should avoid using Apple or Android products, or vehicles, or grocery stores, or clothing stores, or the internet, without living off the land?

Back in the 1920's there were these men referred to as "Robber Baron's" because they became ultra-wealthy largely through unethical, sometimes illegal and monopolistic means. At the time, the gap between the wealthy and poor was at it's highest and was leading to a bunch of societal issues.
The US government finally stepped in and made these people pay their fair share of taxes and for decades afterwards, the middle-class grew, as did the US economy. We are now more or less back to the 1920's levels of wealth inequality. It's been proven time and time again that this level of inequality is a detriment to the larger society and generally only serves the very wealthy.

Without strong regulations in place, human greed will inevitably take over. So we need a higher level of taxation on the wealthy. I also think there should probably be a law where the total compensation of the highest paid worker (likely CEO) can not exceed 100X that of the lowest paid worker in an any organization. This would likely encourage the C-class to actually look after everyone in their organization, not just themselves.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by marsplasticeraser

The issue is that it's too easy to evade taxation. Ultra HNW already shield their assets in corporations in tax havens, but for personal taxation it's simply too easy move to where they pay less/no tax.

It's why Britain's richest man lives in Monaco, even though he owns a massive UK business.

Even guys with 'only' $100m move to tax free jurisdictions. Dave Portnoy of One Bite Pizza fame spends 6 months of the year in Florida to claim that as his taxation residence.

Even if somehow all developed countries had a tax on billionaires (which will never happen), Billionaires can just move to an island nation for their primary residence, and spend a month or two in London, Paris, NYC, Tokyo, San Fran and evade local taxation.

I don't see an easy way to eliminate loopholes, though I suppose you could make access to a country's market dependent on profits staying subject to that countries personal taxation laws, but eventually that means less access to capital for Canadian businesses, which could suck.

You'd also need someway to ensure when equity in a business is sold there is local taxation, which I think would be hard. For example, if I start an oil company in Alberta that extracts Alberta resources, but own the stock in this company through a Cayman Island numbered company, when I sell my company, the money never comes through Alberta, so there is no tax paid.

Yeah this is the real problem with any tax the rich proposal. Wealth flight is real. You’d need to do it somehow at the market level at all major exchanges leveraging the the value of participating in major markets. It would have to be US led and likely still has huge amounts of evasion.

But it seems most of the support for the existence of billionaires is philosophical rather than practical. The world needs to change its mindset that the billionaire is representive of success as opposed to a failure in the economic system.

[PsYcNeT]

Lmao that anyone could characterize Musk as always working when he spends 18 hours a day ####posting on the app he sunk 44 bil into

[Maritime Q-Scout]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

Lmao that anyone could characterize Musk as always working when he spends 18 hours a day ####posting on the app he sunk 44 bil into

Hey now, it takes A LOT of work to lose more money than anyone in history!

[FlameOn]

Microsoft drops Twitter from it's advertising platform

https://mashable.com/article/microso...ising-platform

[belsarius]

If those 5,000 ex-twitter employees had anywhere near the work ethic of Elon, they would have already built their own twitter competitor that these companies can move to.

But they are a bunch of sheep who need a visionary in charge to be successful.

[Wormius]

Musk will just rally his herd and they’ll happily pay double for the “prestigious”checkmark. That shouldn’t cover the lost revenue.

Who was the user ranting how Twitter will be wildly successful, without offering any rationale or reasoning for it?

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by Just a guy

So using your logic, do you work 10 times as hard as a TFW? If not then you are in the wrong.
It is called value of the work performed. Are lawyers worth what they charge? Go through all the professions and ask the same question. They do not wotk 5 times (arbitrary ratio) than the standard person. We value that work and pay for it accordingly.

I think using professionals is a bit of a weak example here. Most professionals (lawyers, doctors, accountants, engineers) do not even make seven figures let alone the amounts people are debating here (top 100 wealthiest etc.)

The issue is the amount of work and value that some business owners / CEOs etc. provide is well below what a blue caller worker (or even a professional) would make for the value performed

[PsYcNeT]

Today was "lolz epic 4/20" blue-check apocalypse day, and Musk being a giant petty baby even managed to #### that up

https://twitter.com/user/status/1649139693580345344

[Fuzz]

Huh, it seems Musk has quietly removed CBC's state funded tag.


https://twitter.com/CBCNews

[kermitology]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Huh, it seems Musk has quietly removed CBC's state funded tag.


https://twitter.com/CBCNews

It’s only on the main CBC account.