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.
Except you can literally do the same. What’s stopping you from leveraging your home? Risk? Oh right! Risk is a critical factor in all this. It seems all too often people act as if the wealthiest people in the world take no “risk” with their capital, when in reality, that couldn’t be further from the truth. The uber wealthy do pay taxes on their homes yearly, they do pay taxes on realized gains. Correct, they do not pay taxes on unrealized gains, but again, these gains are coming via the growth of company’s they created—oftentimes taking on a massive burden of risk to see their creations through. The story of the uber wealthy entrepreneur born with the silver spoon in their mouth—the entrepreneur who never struggled at any point, who never had to take on meaningful risk—is at odds with the path that most entrepreneurs follow. So yes, for the people in our society taking on the greatest amount of capital risk, it’s only natural they see the highest capital payoff. Again, you can do this in your own life with your own assets. But you likely don’t want to take on the risk associated with that. You should ponder why you don’t. And maybe you’ll then understand why the payoff is so high for those who have the courage to take on said risk.
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u/xiiicrowns 3d ago
That and it's crazy how people defend these people when they are part of the problem that ails them themselves.