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Comment by ilyt | Hacker News Reader

To be successful enough to be worth hundreds of millions and zip around in private jet, completely oblivious to how normal people lead their lifes ?

Oh tell me what benefit does that have for the rest of the society?

There is basically no thing single human can do that can be worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year to society. It's all skimming off top people that actually put the work in.

Well, maybe if someone cured cancer but we all know that if someone did company hiring him and their CEO would reap most of the profits anyway

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What coercive mechanism made people buy JK Rowlings books, and made her a billionaire?

Who did JK Rowling exploit to funnel so much of those book sales towards herself?

If someone buys a Harry Potter book, is she not entitled to a portion of the money?

In winner take all dynamics, like what books parents buy for their kids, a person can easily earn 1000 times more than the average person by doing a similar amount of work.

Above a certain level I could certainly get behind saying no she's not entitled to it. 100% marginal tax rates above $10 million in annual earnings seem perfectly reasonable to me.

That won’t stop her from being a billionaire. She could have ownership of a company that would make her net worth orders of magnitude higher than any earnings cap.

You cannot put a cap on a company’s worth, because it’s a guess.

They can decide to nationalise those companies as well, but then she could take her skills to another country. Then that country loses all of her earnings for sure.

The other way to stop her from being filthy rich would be to make people stop liking her books. Which at this point one should ask how much damage one is willing to do to stop a person from being rich.

Didn't say anything about taking all their money. Just making sure they actually pay the taxes and not avoid that in million ways they have, both for themselves and for their corporations. Majority of government tax income should come from corporate, not individuals.

You say they aren't worth what they get paid, and you assess that how? Don't you think the millions of people paying them know better than you who should be paid for what?

Have you considered the fact that it is you that is paying them for what they bring into your life? Every time you buy a TV, order something on Amazon, go to Walmart, use a card instead of cash, you are paying these people because you like what your money buys you.

> Have you considered the fact that it is you that is paying them for what they bring into your life?

So far they have been mostly stopping what I want to be brought to life. Every time promising game developer gets bought then their games got watered down for mass appeal and ultimately becoming irrelevant.

> Have you considered the fact that it is you that is paying them for what they bring into your life?

That's the problem, there is no other choice! No matter from who you buy it always ends up supporting some billionaire, you can't buy TV from some indie company. The least they can do is pay fucking taxes from that profits. Individual taxes should be not main government income, corporate ones should be.

If they can have privilege of getting profits worked on by whole company the least they can do is to contribute same or more than individuals do to the budget.

Have you considered that some billionaire always gets a cut because theyre an important part of the ecosystem? Why is it you can't find a business stream without a rich guy there? Who do you think pays those construction workers to build the factory before it will ever produce a single dime of revenue?

You talk about billionaires and corporate taxes. You know billionaires are individuals, not corporations, right? And you know that they pay taxes? Also did you know that corporations don't actually make any money, the people that work there and own shares in them get the profit, and pay taxes when they do? At least the rich ones do, the not rich people who own these companies are people like you and me who have 401ks and pay no taxes on our share of the profits these companies generate, and that accounts for most of the ownership in them.

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