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[–] 50 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

"Billionaires don't actually have cash."

"If you taxed them they'd have to sell stock and it would crash the market."

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  • [–] 10 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

    Musk doesn't have hundreds of billions in cash, but he does have hundreds of billions in buying power.

    The way the CEO/elite stock-holding class does this is by borrowing against the stock as collateral. That way they incur zero tax for capital gains, have zero direct exposure, and since banks specially cater to the ultra-wealthy with relationship managers, they basically have concierge-like access to whatever funds they want correlated perfectly with that magical "imaginary" wealth valuation.

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  • [–] 32 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    5 years ago he reckoned he'd solve world hunger for the paltry sum of $6b.

    Money is wasted on billionaires.

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  • [–] 16 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

    If that sounds like a crazy amount, just remember that it's only 0.05% of his net worth. Proportionally it's the equivalent of me making a fifty-dollar donation.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    This is what always makes me scratch my head. If winning was that important to him, why not dump a cool 10 billion into winning?

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  • [–] 15 points 2 weeks ago

    Sounds desperate.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 weeks ago

    Free Speech.

    Anthony Kennedy, eat a big bag of dicks.

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