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[–] 28 points 4 months ago (1 child)

The wealth gap was already so heinously egregious in 2016 too.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago

    Remember occupy wallstreet? The wealth inequality in 2006-2007 was so bad there were tons of videos going around exposing with easily verifiable information about just how much more money the 1 percent had than everyone else. Then the recession happened and then suddenly when you went back to look at that information it had been cleaned up to make it look like the 1 percent didn't really own that much more. I think it was right around the time that Google dropped "don't be evil"

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  • [–] 55 points 4 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 23 points 4 months ago

    Looks like buying Twitter was a great investment. Being able to change the outcome of an election definitely beats ad revenue.

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  • [–] 21 points 4 months ago (5 children)

    Don't forget Bezos had a 2 for 1 split when he got divorced.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (4 children)

    I know you're being humerous, but I can't resist pointing out a 2 for 1 split doesn't change the value.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (3 children)

    The split decreases the value of 1 share.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (2 children)

    Right, but now you have 2 shares that you still own, so Bezos undergoing a 2 for 1 split would still be worth the same.

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  • [–] 16 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    This is the fucking hilarious part of inflation.

    Yeah. There’s more money. And nobody has it except a handful of scum.

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  • [–] 10 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    "Libertarians" and BaSiC eCoNoMiCs guys blame inflation on "printing money," but they don't like to talk about who the printed money went to, which is the real problem. Wall Street and big corporate was bailed out in 2008, that's where the expanded money supply was concentrated into.

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  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago* (1 child)

    To continue…and liberals don’t like to talk about how capitalism requires the theft of wealth from the working class via surplus value and that in order to get rid of this class subjugation and oppression we need to get rid of the system that breeds it - capitalism. The workers need to take back the very thing that is oppressing them - the means of production/private property. When in private hands it benefits the private individuals. When in the hands of the working class - it benefits all….and the formerly bourgeois class are absorbed into the working class (aka there are no more classes)….which is the thing they fear most. This is why they teach you to parrot anti-communist propaganda through all of their propaganda channels.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    The problem still seems to be governance. Like even in that system some of the workers are involved in regulating the infrastructure of production and that necessarily means that one person is telling a lot of people what they can and can't do. We don't really have a way to do this that doesn't involve hierarchy. And our little monkey brains love a hierarchy.

    So that's the real problem of communism. Because otherwise it is a better system and it should beat capitalism. Unfortunately because capitalism is better at concentrating resources into fewer hands it's better at defending itself from fairer systems.

    Also the US having had little physical damage after ww2 meant that the capitalist had a much better base from which to perpetuate itself.

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  • [–] 5 points 4 months ago

    A lifetime ago I heard that "inflation is good actually, because it allows for economic mobility" as in people without a lot of money get more of the "new" money and so get to join the "middle class" (not a real class, but an income bracket).

    Turns out the rich plugged up that little leak in tiny bit of wealth that actually did trickle down.

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  • [–] 15 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    We had a wealth gap between the poor and rich, and now we're getting a wealth gap between the rich and super rich?

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  • [–] 15 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    Pulling more Luigis could stop them.

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  • [–] 9 points 4 months ago

    You'd have to create a threat linked to the money, so that Luigis went after anyone who kept their inheritance or dared to keep the wealth consolidated.

    Eventually, someone would disseminate the money to survive.

    On a related note, someone needs to hunt down private equity brokers and unethical venture capitalists the way Nazi hunters went after escaped Nazi officers after WWII, either to Luigi them or to bring them to international tribunal. Although, since nations can be influenced by ultra-wealthy oligarchs, it might not be possible to form such a tribunal. And that brings us back to the frontier justice of goomba-stomping plumbers.

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  • [–] 43 points 4 months ago (6 children)

    Nah the wealthiest people aren't on the list, and they are much wealthier than any of these guys. The family of Saud is way up there but keep most of their wealth hidden.

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  • [–] [S] 47 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    They're a big family though, none of which have more than Musk INDIVIDUALLY.

    You'd be right about Putin and other despots with de facto one person ownership of entire countries worth of wealth and resources, though.

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  • [–] 19 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Yes if you think what they report officially is correct. Most everyone is aware they only report a small fraction of their wealth. Musk is by far not the first trillionair, he is the first one publicly.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah I suspect this doesn't account for "old money" at all. That class of people is so entrenched they own such foundational layers of society that nothing touches them at all. If anyone knew what they owned it could be taxed away from them.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago*

    Security through obscurity is a very valuable lesson. It's the king who rules in public who gets his head chopped off. This is why some find these more public personas to be placeholders for the real movers and shakers. If one stays out of the limelight they can weather changes and maintain control.

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  • [–] 11 points 4 months ago

    !twnw@fedia.io their wealth must be taxed. It's not even an issue of "can we survive without a wealth tax" but "how long". These people are gluttons and will never stop hoarding.

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  • [–] 11 points 4 months ago*

    More like 5 biggest criminals

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  • [–] 10 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Way to hang in there Mr bezos

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  • [–] 9 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    how is dell in the top 5? Seriously though only buffet at least has the financial accumen to actually be there. Decades of lowering taxes has made it so that even if you lose bilions like musk did you still won't lose your fortune. Its barely a rounding curve for him.

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  • [–] 5 points 4 months ago

    Well at least elon is no longer a trillionaire.

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago

    how can this be possible!? it almost looks like they printed an enormeous amount of money extra! this cant be true, else devaluation of the dollar would be immense! (/cynical)

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  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago

    Not until we kill them all

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (7 children)

    Capitalism is inherently expansionist.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (6 children)

    Not just capitalism, but every human system almost, will have those in power--by whatever philosophy--to continue to expand their power until things start to break down/heads start rolling.

    There's temptation to think we're living in a unique point of history, but we're just the fresh turn of the wheel.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (5 children)

    The point of criticizing capitalism is to address the inherent flaws in the current system, and to supplant it with a different system that inherently limits the wealth/power of the people at "the top" of it (or if there even could be a "top").

    It definitely is a unique point in history as well, even if it rhymes with previous points and we're still humans all along.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (4 children)

    You're espousing a fantasy future permanent utopia, a common article of faith among progressives.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)

    You’re espousing a fantasy future permanent utopia, a common article of faith among progressives.

    You're misunderstanding entirely and making a strawman argument

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    supplant it with a different system that inherently limits the wealth/power of the people at "the top" of it

    If Inherently limiting the power of people in any LARGE society isn't utopic, please let me know when it's ever been done before and how it it was achieved; and remember I specified large society. Humans fare better in smaller societies... until they get invaded by a larger one.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago

    It all depends on people who are working in their companies. If they stop working in their companies the wealth will fade away.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    anyway getting more from 2026 ?

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    Nice to see some people are doing fine in this economy.

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  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago* (6 children)

    I wonder what would happen if we just stopped printing money. Told the fed to just "turn off the tap" so to speak. I'd love to hear the conversation with their accountant: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN '[I] HAVE ALL THE MONEY!?!!?'"

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  • [–] 5 points 4 months ago (5 children)
  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago* (3 children)

    I WONDER What would happen if we stopped printing money. Explore the idea ANYWAY. Ever hear the saying "It's so crazy it just might work?"

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (2 children)

    I wonder what if instead of a dick you had a sepulka, what the implications of that?
    The answer is nothing, that's not how any of that works.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)

    Capping currency reserves is a better standard of value than debt ever was. Perhaps you should go look up WHY money has value in the first place because you seem to be unaware that this is all made up anyway. It also makes cutting off money gluttons like one cuts a drunk off at a bar a lot easier to justify.

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