Microblog Memes

US billionaires:

“Wait, you mean to say that we can keep our current quality of life, dabble in our little space projects, and that those we employ won’t suffer???”

“Lol naw fuck that.”

And this is America right now:

worth noting how norway is rich off of oil

I honestly don't think the problem is that Capitalist's don't understand that concept; they very much do.

They also understand that the money for raising that floor would likely come from taxes on them; and so keeping the floor low means that they can keep even more profit.

It's not a lack of understanding. It's pure unadulterated evil.

Eh, no reason to discard the idea of putting a ceiling on the rich. Even if you took away all of the money people had that was over 1 billion dollars, that wouldn't cause any of those people to suffer.

Depends. I actually fully support putting a ceiling on wealth.

The analogy I always come back to is nuclear weapons. We don't let private individuals own them. We don't make you get an atomic bomb license. We don't tax nukes heavily. We don't make sure that only the kindest and most ethical people are allowed to own nukes. We simply say, this is too much power to be trusted to one individual. No one should have that level of power.

And yet, would anyone doubt that someone like Bezos, all on his own, can cause an amount of damage comparable to a nuclear bomb? If Bezos had it in for an entire city, could he not destroy it? Could he not buy up the major employers and shut them down? Could he not buy up all the housing and force the citizens into penury? Could he not buy up and shut down the hospitals? I have no doubt that, if he wanted to, Bezos could single handedly destroy a city. And how many lives would that take? How many would drink themselves to death or die by their own hand after Bezos came in and destroyed their entire lives? How many would die from lack of resources and medical care, etc?

Bezos could absolutely, if he wanted to, single-handedly cause a level of destruction and human misery comparable to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

And that is a power no one should have. The only way anyone should have that level of power is through democratic elections.

This is why I support wealth caps. I would personally set the maximum allowable wealth at 1000x the median household income. In the US, this would be about $80 million USD. That's about the maximum fortune a person that actually works for wages can amass in a lifetime, if they're a very high earner, live very frugally, and marry someone of similar status. 1000x median household income is the limit of what I consider to be an honest fortune - one made primarily through your own work, rather than sponging off the labor of others.

"doesn't put a ceiling on wealth"

eeeeehh. maybe we fucking should?

increased privatisation is happening all over the Nordics. I don't know how much in Norway compared to here in Finland, but being in my fourth decade I can definitely see it happening and intensely. I can't get a fucking public dentist anymore. Hell, children aren't given free dental care anymore.

3 people in America each have several times as much wealth as the entire bottom half of America. It's ok to have a ceiling nobody contributes 400B to society. For reference that is more than every teach and every doctor make in America. Does anyone believe that Elon is individually more valuable than the either profession?

To be fair, it helps that Norway suddenly got rich by selling ecologically disasterous products to the rest of the world while avoiding them itself.

I'm of the opinion that that doesn't go far enough

We need to put hard limits on personal wealth (and the wealth of companies too). After 10 million networth in wealth, all your income should go to taxes 100% until you're below that limit.. something similar should exist for companies

Same goes for power and fame. I don't want or need a president, or a CEO that directs billions of dollars

Keep everything small, keep everyone small. Mega projects can still be done by multiple companies together, for example

End the rich!

Norwegian here: the floor is getting more and faulty and it is dependent on the imperial mode of living generally and oil and arms exports specifically

That last line nails it: it doesn’t cap success, it just makes sure failure isn’t catastrophic.

Great. Now do both.

And Trump asked recently, why don’t we have immigrants from Norway?

It’s mind blowing, the lack of self awareness.

social democracy is the best form of capitalism but it's still capitalism

Where do that money come from

In Norway, Healthcare is fund with the Government Pension Fund. Its an investment of petrolum benefits, but nowadays, its wealth is mainly due to speculation. In short, people in Norway benefits of the capitalist exploitation elsewhere.

From an international perspective, it does lower the wealth of workers anywhere but in Norway.

On the other side, in france healthcare was only funds by the workers, and does not participate in imperialism. It's maybe why the french state is so direct for securing its economics interests. Capitalism is note one issue, it is many issues

Norway has a very high gini coefficient, i.e. high inequality. It's just that the people at the bottom still get a decent standard of living.

I think a ceiling would actually be healthy. I don't love that we're still pandering to the rich even with this summary. Still, it's good to push any healthy message. I'm just saying it could be better. No one in the entire world needs more than 20 million dollars. No one. That should be the highest we allow, and even lower would be better.