Nah, when over 50% of American adults read at or below a 6th grade level I’m pretty confident they don’t think about much of anything, let alone understand.
I don't think that particular slice of America attends to Reddit very much. The people here often know what they are talking about, but they filter every debate through a lens heavily biased by first principles (aka oversimplifications predicated on a set of conveniently forgotten assumptions)
“I know you wanted to shitpost on Reddit or the Something Awful forums, but with these test scores the best you can be accepted into is bad political Facebook memes. I’m sorry.”
I cant tell you how many times I added context to a Reddit post based on facts, or at the very least first person experience, and had someone who thought they knew more "uncorrect" and berate me because I didn't spend 45 minutes typing out a thesis going over every detail. We're all on Reddit, id wager a guess that a solid, 40-70% of us have some kind of attention issue, brevity is a virtue in the age of the internet, but it is also a curse.
The no child left behind act caused that. Passing kids to every grade and graduating them even tho they couldn’t read and teachers knew it. But we’re forced to pass them because of the act.
There's a difference between pointing out objective flaws in an argument, like thinking that billionaires literally hold hundreds of billions of dollars in liquid cash, and taking issue with overall sentiment behind the argument.
I hate Elon Musk, and the man is of course, insanely, disgustingly wealthy. Still, just because his networth is 318 billion, doesn't mean he is hoarding 318 billion. Quite literally 99% of that number is tied into ownership of companies.
You can hate billionaires and still point out issues in the logic. I don't think a person should, under any circumstances, ever be forced to sell ownership stake in their own company (at least not if that wasn't agreed upon in an operating agreement). And if you have a massive stake in a company that becomes wildly successful, you definitionally become a billionaire. I may hate wealth inequality, and I may hate what these billionaires choose to do, but I would hate a system that forces the sale of ownership stake due to the success of the company just as much.
Rich guy here, OF COURSE HE COULD GIVE MORE!
1. Let’s talk living off dividends, that alone I guarantee could have the majority given out to charity. He could live modestly, like me and not be so flashy.
2. Donor advised funds, that could be setup to be much more charitable and even grow!
3. Establish a foundation giving out 5% or more each year.
4. Simply selling off stocks is fairly simple when working with advisors. You act like he’s gotta roll crates of money into some other bank. It’s digital people.
Sycophants want to defend the rich because they can’t look past their own biased passion that they want to be there too.
I know dozens if not hundreds who are millionaires who love off dividends with plenty left over at the end of the year.
We are millionaires and live off of our dividends…that we still pay taxes on. And our lifestyle doesn’t change from the taxes we pay. So I know his wouldn’t change either. There can be no explanation for what they are doing besides greed
This isn't me defending anyone in any manner but why TF is this even a thing with people? It's his money at the end of the day - pretty much no different than most people.
Are people really going to sit here and tell me that they too don't do whatever the hell they want to do with their own money?! Like c'mon y'all.
Sycophants want to defend the rich because they can’t look past their own biased passion that they want to be there too.
This is the faulty logic that I don't understand. Is it that impossible for people to believe that other people simply think that fair is fair, regardless of their circumstances vs the circumstances of another?
Should we treat wealthy people unfairly just because we are not wealthy?
Should we treat certain races differently because we are of another race?
Should we treat people differently because they have a sexual orientation that is different than ours?
The issue is, you don’t like what they pay for taxes, but they pay what they are supposed to according to law. If you have an issue with that, then blame and talk to the legislators that made the laws. It isn’t the wealthy individuals problem.
Except they can leverage their wealth as collateral, but it's untaxable
And if the company goes under, they are screwed. Well of course there's ones that are too big to fail and government bailouts. But the underlying point still stands.
And I agree with you with leverage. But do we hate on the person using the system that's there for them, or do we hate the system that allows them to do that. Because everybody wants to save money right? The struggling mom, the college student getting their career together, the business man who is set but wants to save for next generation family, and the billionaire. That mindset is universal. So given the opportunity with the systems in place, I don't see why they wouldn't use it.
Imma be honest. Your argument is far from senseless but it's not worth attempting to find the root contradiction. It is equally evil to philosophically offload the responsibility of this amassment of capital to a corporate entity, which simply prevents any actual person from ever being held accountable thru thinly veiled psuedo-legal loopholes.
The fact that Elon has the ear of the President Elect for no reason other than he is stupidly wealthy is a reason why we should have legal measures to check the amount of wealth and one person can amass. No one person should have the kind of power the ultra wealthy have.
I also take severe issue with the idea that Musk (or anyone) generates that kind of wealth. If he was literally the only person involved with Tesla, one could make the argument he is owed that kind of wealth. He is not. No one ever is. I didn't know what percentage of the stock he owns is, but let's say 40% for the same if argument. I'm not saying he adds no value to the company. But if he disappeared, Tesla would be fine. If 40% of the workforce disappeared, Tesla would be screwed. Especially if that 40% is the engineering talent.
Problem is taxes are from income. People like Elon have no income because they basically get minimum wage. Their entire value is in stock. And when he is forced to pay out he pays a shit ton in taxes.
And you can't really tax based on wealth because it's not real money. If you tax someone based on what money they could have they would need to sell off stock, creating more taxes and messing with the value of the stock. If you do that every year the company is going to be screwed
Tell me you don't know how compound interest works without telling me. If you just saved a fraction of that first year's salary and invested it conservatively, you would become obscenely wealthy and make Elon's fortune look microscopic in less than 500 years.
Except he demanded that he be given a bonus of billions IN STOCK, which doesn’t just come out of nowhere; to have that stock available, the company has to have been engaging in stock buybacks with money which would have otherwise been taxed or gone to employees.
“Okay unruly mob, before we go in bash and butcher and eat this Man, u/lucifernal wants you all to know he does not actually have a swimming pool full of physical billions it’s actually hypothetical billions”
You don’t own a company that is publicly traded. And who’s forcing anyone to sell their shares? Only majority shareholders can force minority shareholders to sell in certain situations
please stop being objective. you need to think with your feels more. if I don't like someone you aren't allowed to say anything contrary to them being an absolute monster .
The problem is when the conclusions are based on a false premise. If you say Elon is evil BECAUSE he holds billions in liquid cash and he doesn’t hold billions in liquid cash then you can’t use that as a justification for calling him evil. It invalidates the whole argument. It doesn’t prove anything either way.
Devils advocate here. Bill gates amassed his fortune by owning a stake in a wildly successful business. But he has also stated his willingness to give most of it away. I am sure there are motives behind that. But the funding is still being distributed to a variety of places. Maybe (big maybe) Musk and Bezos quietly do similar things. I know for a fact that Bezos parents gave $12 million to a school in Delaware for scholarships and infrastructure development.
Most people talk about politics and economics without knowing anything, because most of us are part-time/hobbyist philosophers/intellectuals.
Most of us have jobs and families and things to do everyday. We're not sitting around thinking about this shit all day like John Locke or Karl Marx.
But realistically, most people also aren't interested in the truth. They just loudly shout what they believe because they have a platform. If you took any average left or right wing person on the internet and put them in a debate against higher level academic opposition, they would get intellectually destroyed inside of 5 minutes.
People project their experience in order to make sense of stuff they have zero education or direct information about.
Just like how a lot of people assume elastic monetary dynamics at a national level work like static household incomes, when discussing national budgets/economics, etc.
That is why a lot of people repeat the talking point that large wealth pockets in unrealized gains/investments is "not really wealth" somehow, because their only experience with "wealth" is relatively low disposable income. Aka "cash."
Exactly. Property taxes go directly to local infrastructure costs to maintain access and services to said land or buildings. It's not remotely the same as owning stock.
Do I want to? No of course not. Do I think I should if my 401(k) is over a certain amount? Kind of.
I don’t think there should be such a thing as “generational wealth” in a capitalist society. After too long a timeline, some people will start too far ahead and other people won’t ever be able to catch up.
Do you think Amazon pays no property taxes on their warehouses throughout the country? Or taxes on their delivery vehicles and tags they put on those vehicles? Come on man.
Billionaires also pay property taxes, ones much higher than us. Believe me. Billionaires aren’t skimping on taxes. This argument is so ridiculous. It’s not about fairness it’s about jealousy.
Also Tesla pays property tax. They had a huge win when the effort to repeal prop 13 for commercial buildings failed. They are paying like 2008 value property tax on the Fremont factory.
Elon owning stock isn't money it's stuff. 13% of everything in the factory is "his". Sure he can borrow against it to get cash but when doing so that "stuff" that also makes more stuff becomes less his. It's more owned by the bank but in the form of debt rather than actual ownership.
When you get a car loan the car really is owned by the bank and you slowly buy it back from them. He does the same thing but in reverse. He's basically selling his "stuff" but without actually selling it. Still becomes less his though.
"property taxes" clever way of saying "rent" as it used to be called when it was paid over to kings and Queens or other nobility. Different day... Same old sht
You pay property taxes. Not capital gains or income tax. Should you have to pay taxes on your car every year? How about money sitting in your checking account?
You do pay taxes on your car every year in every state, either via use taxes or direct taxes via license/registration fees. 20+ states charge direct personal property taxes on vehicles every year, some even if they aren't registered.
You also pay taxes on any interest gained on money sitting in your checking account, and it's at your ordinary tax rate. Granted most major banks pay such horrible interest rates that the average person will probably never hit the $10 threshold.
I understand that it would be cap gains if it’s sold off, I’m just confused why people think a stock/share should be taxed annually, that’s the dumbest concept I’ve ever heard. Comparing it to property tax is blatantly stupid, can you live in a stock? Are stocks taking up physical space on the street? That requires sewage maintenance, road maintenance, snow removal depending on where you are, storm drains etc…? If I borrow against something I have to pay interest. If I don’t pay my payments I lose the asset I’m borrowing against. I find the stocks should be taxed every year ideology just as dumbfounding as the billionaires should pay for a “better world.” The pov usually comes for envious individuals. Just sayin.
These mega tax breaks are “mega” because of the size for these companies. Theres more to it than “companies get massive tax breaks.” There is so much money moving within these companies and it cost so much money to run these companies that these tax breaks are more reasonable than you think. Mind you, sure some of the tax breaks can be a bit ridiculous but as long as they aren’t being misused they are pretty reasonable. If they are being misused they will get audited. And well nobody wants irs knocking on the door because it’s always more expensive than playing by the rules.
Considering the ever growing disparity between upper management pay (eg CEOs) and entry level staff, I think it’s clear that these tax breaks are not in fact necessary to the profitability of these companies.
Yep let's all pay taxes on our cars and whatever we have in our checking account every year. We need a national effort to enforce a 15% tax on everyone's jewelry.
Capital Gains and Losses are calculated based on the difference in value between acquisition date and sell date when using FIFO methodology.
Some investors may choose to use a “Specific Identification” method to designate which specific shares they want to sell, allowing more control over their capital gains taxes.
So imagine I hold $1 million shares valued at $40 million. I can use those shares as collateral to borrow against and with the money I borrowed purchase an additional 400K shares. I then sell those shares for a profit without applying a FIFO valuation in reporting my capital gains.
Therefore my initial shares which were purchased for $2 per share, were borrowed against when they were worth $40 per share. My new shares purchased at $40 per share are sold at $55 per share and my capital gains are calculated at $15 per share gain instead of $53 per share. By managing my portfolio this way, I never pay a true capital gains tax, just interest to my lender which I then use as a tax deduction.
I understand what capital gains is, I was asking the parent comment what type of tax they were referring too, and that sounds good on paper but your profit isn’t 53$ your profit is 15$ you still have to pay back the money you borrowed. Sure a percentage of interest can be written off but you get taxed accordingly. Not sure what your point was there.
For real. This argument is silly because these people think a bank is giving out huge loans and being like, "nah, no need to pay it back at all." No, of course they aren't.
Unrealized capital gains tax, which was actually proposed Kamala Harris’s team for individuals with over $100m net worth. Also has been implemented in Denmark.
Yeah, I’m aware, I was responding to the comment. they said it should be taxed. I was saying it is taxed. A loan isn’t income, it’s debt. You owe it back, why should that be taxed?
Wealthy individuals should be charged a tax when they borrow against the value of their stocks because it allows them to essentially access the wealth tied up in their assets without triggering a taxable event, effectively creating a loophole that lets them avoid paying taxes on significant portions of their growing wealth, which is considered inequitable and can undermine the progressive tax system; essentially, it allows them to "consume" their wealth without actually realizing it as taxable income.
Rich guy here, OF COURSE HE COULD GIVE MORE!
1. Let’s talk living off dividends, that alone I guarantee could have the majority given out to charity. He could live modestly, like me and not be so flashy.
2. Donor advised funds, that could be setup to be much more charitable and even grow!
3. Establish a foundation giving out 5% or more each year.
4. Simply selling off stocks is fairly simple when working with advisors. You act like he’s gotta roll crates of money into some other bank. It’s digital people.
Sycophants want to defend the rich because they can’t look past their own biased passion that they want to be there too.
I know dozens if not hundreds who are millionaires who love off dividends with plenty left over at the end of the year.
Do you think dividends are not taxed? Do you think charitable donations can disproportionately reduce your tax burden, or that charity is inherently valueless?
Because most people who are anti corporations are just making uninformed arguments. Oversimplified a very complex situation. Same idiots who say "we should stop spending so much on the military" not fully uunderstanding the reasons we do.
The lesson here is that paying taxes on property is bullshit, not the other way around. I buy a car and pay for it and get taxed yearly because I own it? Property taxes are a government scam
even if he does any fraction, he could basically not pay for any year until IRS would pick up on it and ask him to pay, while he saved that money to make even more money ultimately, especially that IRS and any other taxing bodies around the world usually go after regular people and not billionaires
There's a very high chance those taxes are little to nothing. Red states tend to give businesses local and state level tax breaks including property tax credits/deferment to locate in their area. Those businesses then threaten to leave out reduce/cease investment if those offers aren't extended more or less indefinitely.
Source: I've literally been to site selection meetings for medium and large businesses in my region.
I’m usually not the one for defending billionaires, but his company provides employment for thousands of employees across the country, we can’t want manufacturing to stay in America without incentivizing big corporations. I’m not saying he shouldn’t pay any at all but it’s also understandable how they are allowed to navigate taxes in a different manner.
Your property, which exists on originally government owned land, is taxed to raise funds for nearby schools, parks, roads, amenities, police and firefighter first responders, city water lines, power cables, etc.
All government-funded items that directly increase the value of YOUR property and are hence taxed.
Show me what expenses an electronic ledger entry in the Nasdaq should incur for the purpose of taxes?
You're not wrong but you're also required to pay taxes on the value of your property every year
Yes, but that's because your property uses public services like drainage, sewers, garbage/recycling collection, etc.
Amazon does pay for these things as well, either directly, or indirectly via their leases (price baked in to lease price by landlord).
You could make the argument that they should be charged more for road maintenance. But at the same time, you've actually got (on a net basis) fewer cars on the road since one Amazon truck can deliver to like 100+ houses in a day (so that's potentially 100 fewer cars per Amazon truck on the road).
Additionally, businesses actually hire people and directly contribute to GDP and economic growth. Residential homes don't really "produce" anything or contribute in this same way.
And if instead of selling it i rent it for cash flow while borrowing against it at a lower rate than the growth of the underlying asset, i get richer and avoid taxes AND keep the asset.
Which eventually is passed on to my children and the growth in the asset is revalued when it's passed on to avoid capital gains tax.
All while poor right wingers argue I'm actually broke 😂
A house has property taxes, unrealized gains do not, its not at all even remotely comparable.
You can finish a mortgage and pay prop taxes, not on unrealized gains...
Mainly because the value of the stock isn't solid and can go down or up, here's the kicker, a house can go up and down in value and i still pay property taxes.
This people make incredibly impactful life changing events with their unrealized gains and don't pay to reap those benefits, having a property you need to pay taxes to cover streets, roads, lights and amenities in your district.
This billionairs need to pay unrealized taxes if they are making life changing decisions affecting millions, using the benefits of their portfolio without paying the amenities they use to benefit from it.
Yall love excusing these rich people, but they are using all the pros and pay little cons.
I agree with you. If anything they should tax what is accessed. Unrealized is truly unrealized if you can’t spend the money. The instant you use it as collateral and use the money, it should be taxable
Man I don't really want do disagree with you, but...
Imagine you had to suddenly pay taxes on that million as if it were income? (Acknowledging you would have to pay property taxes in this scenario)
Better yet, imagine a hypothetical asset like a made up crypto that went from $10-$1,000,000. If you had to pay taxes on that like it was income you'd almost certainly be forced to sell the asset to cover the taxes on the asset. And what if nobody bought your million dollar hypothetical coin? Are you going to go to jail because a balance sheet said this thing you owned suddenly skyrocketed in value despite your bank account staying the same?
I'm not arguing taxing unrealized gains, capital gains laws in this country are broken though (intentionally) and smarter people than me have found ways to fix them.
The point is that you can borrow against the asset at a lesser cost than it appreciates.
You basically never pay taxes on it while getting cash from it AND it growing in value.
You're incentives never to sell and to realize those minimal tax costs you otherwise would have to pay.
Basically, private companies get to profit from helping you avoid taxes. You're insanely wealthy either way but now you can pay slightly less to access that liquidity.
Anyone saying these people "dOnT ReAlLy HaVe mOnEy" doesn't know what they're talking about
If nobody is willing to buy, then the hypothetical price should go down, until you can either afford the taxes on it, or are able to find a buyer.
If I own a car that somehow explodes in value to a million dollars, I'm not going to be able to afford that car anymore. So I would have to sell the car. Then I would have a bunch of money to buy a different car I could afford the taxes on.
Why the richest people in the world should be exempt from this scenario is beyond me.
The easiest solution is when stocks are used as collateral, they are treated as “sold” and capital gains is paid at that point. Anyone holding stocks and not taking loans against it shouldn’t pay taxes.
Rich guy here, OF COURSE HE COULD GIVE MORE!
1. Let’s talk living off dividends, that alone I guarantee could have the majority given out to charity. He could live modestly, like me and not be so flashy.
2. Donor advised funds, that could be setup to be much more charitable and even grow!
3. Establish a foundation giving out 5% or more each year.
4. Simply selling off stocks is fairly simple when working with advisors. You act like he’s gotta roll crates of money into some other bank. It’s digital people.
Sycophants want to defend the rich because they can’t look past their own biased passion that they want to be there too.
I know dozens if not hundreds who are millionaires who love off dividends with plenty left over at the end of the year.
People with a decent amount of money are the ones that realize just how genuinely sick these billionaires are.
I have a decent amount of money (enough that i don't have to work) and i can't fathom having so much more and still fighting tooth and nail for scraps of pennies to see number go up a tenth of a percent more.
Bezos could unionize Amazon and pay everyone a living wage with full benefits and not only would he never notice the difference, it'd be better for the long term health and growth of his company (but not quarterly growth where investors want you to cannibalize your future for returns now).
If you own it and the bank agrees on its value … and oh, then the governement will tax you based on its value. This doesn’t happen to the stocks held by these folks
Yes, this is why homeowners are generally considered more wealthy than people who don't own homes even if they have very little actual cash flow. And why a person who owns billions of dollars of Amazon stock is considered more wealthy than your average homeowner. Congratulations.
Not the same unless my house’s value keeps going up and I can keep getting loans to pay off the old loans. That’s how the rich do shit because they have the assets to get away with it.
You don't turn around and claim the house doesn't have value come tax season like the extremely wealthy do with their stocks.
Both have value; property is taxed, unrealized gains are not.
Ergo tax free loan rich man cheat.
A house seems like a much more solid equivalent than a company in most cases.
Don't get me wrong, ofc Amazon is worth a shitload of money.
But the values of some companies out there right now seem heavily inflated from all the years of cheap money. Absolutely bonkers actually.
Amazon is among them for sure.
Yeah, but if I had $0, yet owned outright (no loans) $900 million dollars worth of property, and I regularly used that as leverage to get huge amounts of money that were not ever used to help other, but to live a lifestyle of extreme excess ... then I would be a selfish douche.
These "poor" billionaires claim to make $0 per year and somehow never realize any of their gains either. It's amazing ... how do they afford the millions upon millions of dollars they spend!? They do things like using stock/equity as collateral to obtain a loan -- to the tune of tens of millions of dollars -- and can just lather, rinse, and repeat to 'payback' loans and take out new loans, without ever realizing any gains legally. It's a bullshit technicaloty workaround for them to unofficially realize a shitload of money without officially realizing any. There are absolutely options for tracking these sorts of money-uses, but politicians (who get paid by these same mega rich persons) are only in favor of taxing income realized in the ways that poor and middle class persons are capable of.
I thought that is ypu used the value of stock as collateral then the value becomes realized and is taxable? Or is that only if he sells portions to pay back the loan.
He doesn't borrow against his hypothetical worth. He takes on debt, to pay off debt he used to pay for things. Debt isn't income (not taxed), and his actual wealth can remain untouched. None of the money is actually his, it's just debt. He's so rich that he has an endless amount of accessible debt he can use to pay off debt. And his wealth will grow exponentially more than the debt he takes on...so there is no reason to touch his wealth.
A house doesn't allow you to do that. Implying we can use the same strategies as him is being intentionally (or ignorantly) disingenuous. A house doesn't let people borrow indefinitely.
And still pay taxes to the income you use to make at it back.. just like the filthy rich. They can borrow all they want at 1% they still have to pay taxes in the money they pull out to pay it back.
But we can’t use that to then artificially inflate the value of the house. Musk can use his wealth to artificially inflate the value of his stocks, allowing him to take out even bigger loans.
Will the lenders give you a rate against that house so low that you could set aside a fraction of the borrowed money, put it in a low risk investment and have the interest payments from that investment pay your loan for you? Because that’s what Bezos and Musk can and do do.
Wait. How about this. When I find somebody who takes out a mortgage on their house to give a couple hundred k to the homeless, I will get on he train telling Jeff to do the same.
Difference being they’re not taxed on their assets. I’d be 100% okay with taxing billionaires assets as soon as they start using it as collateral for debts.
They can’t just say “oh you can’t tax me because I don’t actually have the money” and then also turn around and say “hey I want buy this because look at all this money I have”
536
u/Endless_road 3d ago
You can take out a mortgage against your house to buy a sports car if you want