This is a billionaire problem as well as a deregulation problem (and of course, there is absolutely a feedback loop in play). Wealth disparity has become a vast chasm, and deregulation allows megacorps and billionaires to leverage their already insane wealth with the investments and retirement funds and pensions of the general public, via index funds and ETFs to continue to multiply their already nonsensically insane wealth.

Google’s Sergey Brin spent $100m opposing California’s Prop 40, a one-time wealth tax that would put the funds toward healthcare and other public services.

I'm just amazed that this is legal. In my book, Sergei would right now be enjoyingnthe view out of a prison window for that stunt alone...

It's long past that time. Tax the hell out of the ultra-rich!

The whole arrangement is remarkable: investors get to cash out on an AI valuation nobody can justify, pension funds get handed the risk, and if it blows up we’ll be told the economy is too important to let it fail.

We could also just stop tying people's entire futures to a 401k. That would solve all of this.

The problem isn't necessarily with the IPOs. If an unprofitable company wants to go public with nothing to offer but empty promises, why shouldn't they?

The real problem is how these companies have grown as large as they have with no profits, and are dominating the US economy. In a sane world, ordinary investors wouldn't be lining up to buy shares of these companies that may never show a profit. What makes it even worse is how indexes are bending their own rules to get these companies in. Many ordinary people might not even realize how much their retirement is tied into these companies at this point.

Now, educated investors might see these as a lotto ticket. Put a small amount into each one, and maybe one or two hits big and generate outsized returns. But those folks are not gambling with their pensions. I have a bad feeling that when it all falls apart, the country as a whole will be left holding the bag, either because the stock market craters to the point that no one can retire, or the Feds step in and bail it all out

It's too late for that. Guillotine is the only solution. Trust me, I'm a licensed guillotine operator.

What can go wrong? Little reckless IPOs never killed anybody and never tanked world economy not even once... or twice... or thrice... or... oh well... how the fuck is this legal again?

Naomi Klein is awesome

Last I checked, that time started at least as far back as 2021

archive link

As long as conservatives continue to live, they will continue to defend the wealth class with their lives. They always have and always will.

To defeat the boss, we must first eliminate their foot-soldiers. Sherman's work is not finished.

Financial obesity is neurotoxic, an existential threat to any society that tolerates it, and needs to cease being celebrated, rewarded, and positioned as an aspirational goal.

Corporations are the only ‘persons’ which should be subjected to capital punishment, but trillionaires should be forced to transition into billionaires, and billionaires should be euthanised through taxation.

Saying what it should be done already. USA doing it's thing again.

You shouldn't even be able to do an IPO if you have more debt that profits.

I don't know why it's such a difficult thing to grasp or agree with ... just place a wealth cap on society everywhere

Let everyone be as greedy as they want to be, let them be ruthless a-holes as much as they want ... just give them an upper ceiling of say $10 million .... anything more that is taxed 100% and sent back to government and the public for public services like health care, education, infrastructure, etc

Why do we accept that one person gets to own $1 billion or more? Can one person realistically expect to live on and enjoy that wealth? And at that level, what is the purpose of growing it even further? What is the point of massive wealth? It only locks up wealth to a small group of people while withholding it from others.

Ultra wealth is a thing of the past when kings and dukes wanted to rule over the country side ... if we want to progress far into the future, we've got to stop acting and living like apes fighting over the biggest pile of bananas.

What's so difficult in arguing that wealth should be shared among as many as possible. And don't give me that argument of being communist or socialist ... I'm talking about a society that is fundamentally no different than the one we already have in the US, Canada or Europe ... except for the part that you regulate wealth to an upper limit.

It would all still be the same for 90% of us and it would only severely affect a very small group of people who stand to lose a lot of wealth ... it would sacrifice their wealth for the benefit of everyone else. And really, it wouldn't hurt them at all ... the only thing it would damage would be their egos, they'd still live a very well off lifestyle ... it's not like we are asking for them to give a blood sacrifice or to call for their beheading at the guillotine.

What's so hard to understand about that?

We just need our politicians to not be on the take and actually push the people bribing the fuck out of them... to not bribe them...

I worry about this plan

Billionaires will lose so much money after IPO.

Any large enough fund should have their own teams for rating the securities. Americans, why are your pension funds so shit?

Now? After they fed their AI models the Internet and whatever images hosted there?

This really feels like Elysium, where — at the moment — they’re getting AI, and we’re getting the shaft. Sure, it doesn’t stop human creation, but since people are having a hard time with the oligarch imitations/facsimiles, I’m wary.

Proove that anthrophic/claude isnt just a wrapper around an openweights model. You cant.

At least here in the US, if you want to stop the billionaires, you have to stop voting Democrat or Republican. (Except for DSA's.) Both ruling parties are wholly owned subsidiaries of the billionaire class, and you've seen how candidates who actually intend to tax billionaires are treated. AES and Zohran were called radical Islamists. Platner had an SA allegation weaponized against him. Others have had tens of millions in both Democrat and Republican money used against them.

So, I'm skeptical, but if these two dozen or so DSA candidates get elected, they could throw their weight around a little.

The more likely scenario is that one of these AI companies is the cause of something truly catastrophic. Maybe a Waymo decides to drive a whole family off a bridge. Maybe an AI-enabled police drone tries to stop a school shooting and kills 50 children in the process. Maybe a model goes rogue and a power grid goes down in a major metropolitan area and does such a great job of fucking it up that it takes months to repair.

I hate it, but that's what it's going to take most likely, just like how we don't get any meaningful infrastructure upgrades until a bridge collapses or something.

Do yourself a favor and don't give an AI agent any of your info or authorize it for any of your accounts. At least that much will help you defend yourself in a minor way.