Post #2643201

2026-05-12 12:41 UTC

I am all for the slogan that &quot;billionaires shouldn&#39;t exist&quot; but it bothers me in a nerdy way that we&#39;ve pegged an abstract idea to a specific number. What is it about &quot;one billion&quot; that is wrong but &quot;600 million&quot; is fine? How could we define obscene wealth in a way that works across currencies and regardless of inflation? Is it about the ratio of maximum wealth to the poverty level? Is it about the inequality of justice? How does a society pick a number that feels fair? (I am not arguing about the slogan, this is a thought experiment about the mechanism)

Replies (1)

@wachoperro@rebel.ar 2026-05-12 13:26

@huxley@furry.engineer As someone who can never fathom what would be like to have a net worth of over 200k USD, i can't understand how taxing the Millionaires isnt a popular opinion. Wouldn't that be 10 years of unspent 100k/year salary? Who can do that and be expected to not pay any wealth tax? In a system with an incremental wealth tax billionaires COULD NOT exist, just matematically, they shouldn't be able to accumulate that wealth between taxing periods. And if they ARE able, without avoiding taxes, that means they have captured an important supply chain somewhere, and that should raise an alarm that more distributed action over that supply chain is needed So, personally, i agree with the slogan, it's just that the reasons are too implicit in it

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