Sen. Sanders proposes one-time tax that would cost Bezos $42.8 billion, Musk $27.5 billion

Seems like Bernie is proposing a tax on unrealized gains...I thought my intro accounting class taught me that wasn't GAAP lol. Anyways, as always, would love to hear you guys' thoughts. Link: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/06/sanders-billionai…

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I get the idea, on one hand makes sense...on the other hand, the government/lower income people don't need more money essentially, they need to manage the money they have better/make better life choices.

At the end of the day do I think it would be better for Bezos to give up some of his money--yes; but he has that for taking the chance to create Amazon. Also, what would be the best way for him to distribute his funds, and whose to say that giving people money will do any good (might just be used to buy more stuff on Amazon; cue the DJ Khaled you played yourself).

 

A lot of low income people don’t just “mismanage” money. Some do. But some just happen to have a kid who gets cancer, then they’re financially fucked for life. There’s a LOT of circumstances outside of people’s control, that is no more than being dealt a bad hand, that just wreck people.

I’m not saying this is all people- some just refuse to work hard enough to break out of their lifestyle and stay poor. But there’s a lot of Americans out there who just had a wrecking ball hit their lives.

“The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.” - Nassim Taleb
 

Yea, I agree...that's why I said I can see it on both sides (one hand vs the other).

On your point, it all comes down to how some people see others. For example, take homeless people, I think if the average person sees the homeless as people who are lazy and don't want to work, they are less compassionate toward them...if they see them as people who have encountered hard times, or have some type of mental disorder, they treat them different.

Problem is, people have a blanket opinion that they want to apply to every homeless person...where I guess is stereotyping. At the end of the day, if there was one solution someone smarter than me would have figured it our by now.

 
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Taxes on unrealized gains are...dumb.

This, along with most of what Bernie does, comes across more like something he'd use as a fundraising email as opposed to something that would actually become policy. He is a thoroughly ineffective politician. Good luck getting this through the Democrats, let alone Congress at large.

Beyond that, even the name - the "Make Billionaires Pay Act" - is obnoxious. I am so utterly tired of populist dumbasses like Bernie or Trump who are incapable of selling intelligent policy to the American people and instead try to rally their moronic followers around hating The Great Other - whether it's Mexicans, Billionaires, Anteeeefa, Wall Street, etc. - instead of making incremental and effective changes that help the American people.

 
"Developer in RE - Comm" Beyond that, even the name - the "Make Billionaires Pay Act" - is obnoxious. I am so utterly tired of populist dumbasses like Bernie or Trump who are incapable of selling intelligent policy to the American people and instead try to rally their moronic followers around hating The Great Other - whether it's Mexicans, Billionaires, Anteeeefa, Wall Street, etc. - instead of making incremental and effective changes that help the American people.

Perhaps you should be more angry at dumbass voters. Politicians don't create political climates, they exploit them.

If I were a working class person who had seen no increase in quality of life, in effective take home pay, in anything in my life for the last several decades, all while being told the economy was roaring and watching billionaires pile up wealth, I'd be angry and frustrated enough to buy into Sanders or Trump. Sanders at least is telling you (implicitly) that even if he can't make your life better or your paycheck bigger, he can make it so it doesn't feel like some corporate overlord is making out like a bandit while you struggle by taxing all their unrealized gains.

This is something folks on this forum in particular don't seem to understand. If lower income folks feel like they're one broken leg from total penury, that they bust their ass and get nowhere, that the system doesn't work from them at all... they're going to change the system. There is absolutely no reason for the person working two jobs and still barely making ends meet to want to follow a sensible middle path. Of course you're going to gravitate to one end of the spectrum or the other, even if in the US the "left" is really center left from a global perspective and the right is basically authoritarian capitalism. Since Reagan left office we've had four decades or so of centrism and it's done nothing for the folks at the bottom except saddle their kids with an unsustainable debt burden.

 

Not sure I agree with this tax but you know what does need to happen? Amazon and Tesla actually paying corporate taxes... subsidies for large corporations like AMZN/TSLA also need to be abolished. Let's start there before discussing personal taxes.

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I only like Bernie when he is scamming young people out of money to cap at 35% of the primary vote. No refunds!

I’m a fun guy. Obviously I love the game of basketball. I mean there’s more questions you have to ask me in order for me to tell you about myself. I'm not just gonna give you a whole spill... I mean, I don't even know where you're sitting at
 

So the plan is all of this money will get funneled into our existing, inefficient healthcare system? It's just a transfer of wealth from tech to big pharma? That doesn't sound like a good idea. At least Medicare for All is trying to control costs in the system by using government power to bargain. I don't like the idea of paying off people's high bills but not fixing the reason why the bills are so high in the first place.

Be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes.
 

Would anyone change citizenship to avoid these numbers? Is that unpatriotic to do - do you think?

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

I remember Eduardo Saverin got out of the US at a controversial time.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolomon/2012/05/11/eduardo-saverin-re…

"Saverin would not be the first billionaire to renounce citizenship for tax purposes. John Dorrance III, heir to the Campbell's soup fortune, cashed out of the family business when he sold his 10.5% stake in 1995-1996. Dorrance renounced his U.S. citizenship and moved to Ireland prior to the sale. John Fredriksen, oil tanker tycoon, jumped ship out of Norway in favor of tax-friendly Cyprus. Brazilian Lily Safra, widow to banker Edmond Safra, ditched Brazil for Monaco."

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

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