We tax houses every year, which is a wealth and land tax.
It isn't stupid. Multi hundred billionaires shouldn't exist. Then this wouldn't be a "problem".
It isn't stupid. Multi hundred billionaires shouldn't exist. Then this wouldn't be a "problem".
One of the bigger failings of the US government over the last half century is allowing corporations to grow and merge their way to become as large as many have. Stronger enforcement of anti-trust would have both significantly reduced wealth inequality in this country as well as siphoned off much of the growing political power corporations have relative to regular citizens.
OK, to be more precise: it would still have a market cap of "multiple hundred billions of dollars" if it never acquired or merged with any other companies.
It's arguable how much of Facebook's current size is a result of natural growth versus what it's gained through said mergers and acquisitions. I'm far more concerned about the fact it's a trillion-dollar company and how large a proportion of people exclusively get their news and other facts from Facebook.
The company is in desperate need of splitting up.
Walk me through that. In 1999, some people proposed splitting up Microsoft. One spinoff would own Internet Explorer, another would own the office suite, a third would own Windows.
You could spin off Instagram and Whatsapp, but after you do that, Facebook is still really big -- worth many 100s of billions. How to split that up?
Every user east of the Mississippi ends up in Facebook East and every user to the west in Facebook West??
Monopolies are not good things. I've been boycotting Amazon for almost 10 years, you can too.
We might explore breaking up the data centers from the software lines of business across Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and more. We have become enamored with vertical integration and acquisitions to the determent of vibrancy in our economy.
There is some reason to think that personal AI agents like Meta Muse will disrupt Amazon's retail business. Amazon currently blocks those bots and doesn't seem to have a strategy to address them.
Pick one: total and complete control over your company, or give it up to the market. Why should owners get the best of both worlds, and at this point trillions of capital themselves?
Honestly if any one has more than $999 the government should take it from them.
Billionaires exert a lot of influence on elections and political parties. When they want a bill killed, they can make that happen with enough money. Is this 100%? No, but looking at races around the country they clearly win enough times.
Billionaires can use their wealth to shield themselves from the law in a way few but the most powerful leaders. I can't do that.
Billionaires decide if our food is safe to eat, unless the pesky FDA gets in the way. Good thing Billionaires can also stop the FDA.
Billionaires destroy public trust in healthcare through "wellness" and "holistic care", because of course there is money to be made there (10x more than "Big Pharma"). Big Pharma is also capable of sabotaging health for their own profits. The Sacklers?
Billionaires direct (the US) government to engage in wars the people don't want.
I could go on for how many industries they control with zero input, or the bare minimum, from the rest of us.
But sure, tell me how a "thousandaire" is directing entire markets and countries to act as they singly wish. I have to coordinate with hundreds of thousands, or even millions, to get policies I like. But a single billionaire? They can stand in the way and make that entire fight so, so much harder. And its painfully obvious the only reason they do so is to further enrich themselves.