"Billinaires shouldn't exist." Do you agree with Bernie? (1 Viewer)

[SkyChief]

Do you have proof or this?

I should have said As far as I know, no innovation ever came out of socialist countries.

Can you think of some?

Just 2 or 3 would be fine.

Thanks.:2wave:

 

[Surrealistik]

Notice Bernie didn't say "millionaires shouldn't exist?"

Bernie is a millionaire.

It's hypocrisy.

Because the implication of millionaires existing isn't nearly as problematic.

 

[Taylor]

Notice Bernie didn't say "millionaires shouldn't exist?"

Bernie is a millionaire.

It's hypocrisy.

Ah, yes. But there was a time not too long ago...

 

[Hatuey]

Re: "Billinaires shouldn't exist." Do you agree with Bernie?

The current system incentivizes oligarchic regimes. Anyone claiming that all people want to do is take money from the rich is fooling themselves. The American people have paid trillions in bail outs, and it's time to ask for it back through the same control of government the rich exercise.

To paraphrase President Trump: if they don't like it, they can leave the country.

Also, Bernie probably won't get this done so it doesn't matter.


Я Баба Яга [emoji328]

 

[jamesrage]

(Let's pretend everything is spelled correctly in the title.)

Amazing how he wants to impose excessive taxes on the rich in order to provide free everything for everybody including illegals.But he thinks these people whom he wishes to impose excessive taxes on in order to pay for everything shouldn't exist. Is he aware that the richest 20% of Americans pay 87% of all income tax collected by the federal government? That money wouldn't magically be divided among everyone else if those billionaires disappeared.

 

[mrjurrs]

In a free society, billionaires should not exist while thousands are unhoused, unfed, and uncared for. They are a creation of the tax system.

 

[OrphanSlug]

No one should agree with Bernie on this, and those that do are asking for down the road consequences for going this direction.

The economic benefits to diminishing the collection of wealth are outweighed by the implication of appealing to government authority and presence to take it away. It is not just taxation, and not just the idea of higher redistribution, but what behaviorally happens when there is less reason for entrepreneurship and business risk.

The other harsh truth is once we go down the road of appealing to governance in this regard, collection still occurs in other ways and usually to the determent of those that thought they would be taken care of.

 

[ALiberalModerate]

People should have the freedom to succeed and become rich.

Becoming rich is the incentive that drives investment, productivity, and innovation. No innovation ever came out of socialist countries.

While there is no doubt that market economies are more innovative, the Soviet Union had its share of innovations.

 

[ALiberalModerate]

It's not a zero sum game. Just because you have billionaires does not automatically mean you also have rampant poverty.

 

[rickc]

In a free society, billionaires should not exist while thousands are unhoused, unfed, and uncared for. They are a creation of the tax system.

Billionares, really all the mega-wealthy are a creation of the tax system.

That they spent 100's of millions of dollars to have written in their favor

Go back to the tax rates before reagan when All of America was doing just.fine, close all those.tax breaks, loopholes and writeoffs the wealthy use and watch things correct themselves.

Of course i would also change the holding.period to qualify for.long term capital gains from its present 1 year to 5 years.

And warren's wealth tax.could speed things along.

 

[j brown's body]

It's not a zero sum game. Just because you have billionaires does not automatically mean you also have rampant poverty.

You certainly have a growing wealth gap.

 

[j brown's body]

Very few, if any billionaires when I was growing up, and yet, we all survived. Indeed, the middle class was stronger. Hard to believe the two aren't related.

 

[rickc]

 

[joko104]

How are you defining a 'monopoly'? Google has literally hundreds of competitors, as does Amazon.

That is not what "monopoly" means. The most famous anti-trust case was against Standard Oil/Rockefeller. At the time there were hundreds of oil companies.

Google controls over 80% of the Internet. Amazon overwhelming dominates. Plus Google and Amazon act as a team via the commonality of Jeff Bezos.

So you are a small business in Internet sales, which is over 50% of all retail and virtually 100% for many product areas. This is what you are up against - noting people shop from the top of page one downward:

Even if you are paying for Google and Amazon advertising...
Google will put Amazon above you for free. So no one pays to click on Amazon - but you have to pay $1, $2, $3 just for someone to look at your website - and people who don't buy off the top page site usually are then just looking - at your expense.
On Amazon, you will pay Amazon 15% (or more), plus $1, $2, $3 against for anyone to just look at your listing - the total costing as much as 30% of the sale.
Amazon pays none of that, plus Amazon will put their own offering of the product above yours (without the 30% cost). Even if someone clicks on your listing (you pay for clicks, not sales), where you check out there probably will be a button stating you can buy it from Amazon for less - so you spent $1, $2, $3 to promote Amazon selling your product.
Thus, you spent $4, $5, $6 to be behind and below Amazon - with Amazon consuming the sale anyway.
If you also can not offer 1 day shipping because it would cost you $35 for 1 day shipping, and Amazon will pay $7.55 cents to the post office for the same 1 day delivery.
Finally, if you have a product Amazon does not have, if you sell a lot of it Amazon will use your data and do the above to you - or just overnight ban you - as many Google - and your company is gone and all employees lost their job overnight. Of course, you can try to scramble for the other less than 20% of the marketplace - with your advertising costs off-the-charts per sale since people do shop from the top down - and the lower it goes the more you are just paying for lookers who don't buy.

THAT is a "monopoly." A monopoly means their dominance and massive size creates unfair competition.

The government just refused to allow Staples and Office Max to merge, claiming it would too much be a monopoly. Are there other office supply stores? Sure. Can people buy office supplies elsewhere online? Sure. But they would so dominate the market it is an unfair advantage.

Amazon also is the #1 location where patent and copyright violations occur, with this very much protected by Amazon. Overall, Amazon commits millions of FDA and USDA violations per day, being too big and too politically powerful to fight. The government literally has demanded we not have certain ad language on our websites - that we many have on Amazon because Amazon is immune for all laws.

Another monopoly aspect is businesses are so dependent on Amazon for Internet sales, that everyone - buyers and sellers - are required to agree that there is no circumstance by which you can sue Amazon. Amazon could knowingly sell you bottles of known poison inaccurately labeled killing everyone in your family, and all you could do is file a case with Amazon to be decided by one of Amazon's mediators.

Actually, who most has called from breaking up Amazon and Google is Elizabeth Warren - and she has explained how it works as a monopoly in great detail. It is an issue I completely agree with her on having direct knowledge. THIS ALSO IS WHEN HER FUND RAISING CRASHED AND SHE RADICALLY DROPPED IN THE POLLS. She dared challenge media owning Amazon and Google, so they crushed her campaign. People wonder what happened to her campaign. Jeff Bezos happened.

IT IS AMAZON, GOOGLE and their media power that crashed Warren's campaign after she said she would use anti-trust laws to break them up their components into separate companies. She has never been brave enough to even mention Amazon or Google ever since. They not only totally control the majority of retail sales, they control the government and politics.

Your defense is not on any knowledge. As for the overall effects and realities? You haven't a clue. Don't even think about patenting a new consumer product. Within a week it will be copied in China with 50 listings above yours on Amazon - with Google putting the cheap Chinese knock-off above your's, and if Amazon is selling it they'll put it above your listing no matter how much you pay - until Amazon and Google ban you entirely.

The ONLY products we sell on Amazon are hazardous materials or that we uniquely manufacture. Amazon does not have hazardous materials at Amazon Prime warehouses and so far no one can even duplicate the other product line.

 

[j brown's body]

Very few, if any billionaires when I was growing up, and yet, we all survived. Indeed, the middle class was stronger. Hard to believe the two aren't related.

As wealth hoarders, they are a drag on the economy.

 

[zimmer]

(Let's pretend everything is spelled correctly in the title.)

If one thinks about it... there should be no Leftist Billionaires, nor Leftist Millionaires...

If Leftists would only live consistent with the bull**** they screech.

They wouldn’t fly around in private jets, own massive houses and the like...

I’m all for people having as much as they can make in a legal fashion, but these Leftists screecher hypocrites are just the biggest hunks of hypocrite bull**** on the planet.

If they’re going to screech the bull**** they do, they should lead by example and live the life they claim others should live. But they don’t. They’re just bull**** artists... types like Bernie Sanders and so much of Hollywood.

 

[Surrealistik]

It's not a zero sum game. Just because you have billionaires does not automatically mean you also have rampant poverty.

It's not zero sum, no, the problem is that wealth has a gravity all its own and is recursive, and when the billionaire share of the pie grows faster than the pie itself (as is currently the case and has been the case for awhile), you obviously have a problem as they, by definition and mathematical certainty, must start taking pie from others.

 

[rickc]

And it is really much worse than you think

Comparing the cost of living between 1975 and 2015: You are being lied and fooled when it comes to inflation data and the cost of living.

Try an inflation calculator.on what your starting salary was and how much that starting salary should be just to keep up with what our government calls inflation which we.all know isn't really correct.

Here is one there are many more.out.there

Inflation Calculator

 

[ALiberalModerate]

You certainly have a growing wealth gap.

Right, but that is not because we have billionaires. That is due to a lot of factors like the decline of unions, years of anemic gdp growth rates, lower productivity growth, competing with workers worldwide in a global economy, rent seeking behavior and so on.

 

[Lursa]

If you make over $32K a year, you're in the top 1% globally.

That is only meaningful based on your own local cost of living.

 

[Patriotic Voter]

How are you defining a 'monopoly'? Google has literally hundreds of competitors, as does Amazon.

No they don't. Google originally was nothing but a search engine. Then they added email. Then they added maps, calendars, etc. No other company has all of the services and products Google offers. Some companies did shrink or go out of business because they did not have enough moneyt to catch up with Google. Not to mention those TV advertisements for an artificial intelligence product, whose competition is . . . Amazon.

Speaking of Amazon, can you name any other company that offers free one-day shipping and two-day shipping, including free return shipping, on select products if you have a membership? That alone makes Amazon a richer company than any of its "competitors" in America, which only "compete' in the sense of selling the asme or similar products in their respective departments. Another way they do it is make their own products. Trivia question: Which company invented the TV Firestick?

 

[Bullseye]

People should have the freedom to succeed and become rich.

Becoming rich is the incentive that drives investment, productivity, and innovation. No innovation ever came out of socialist countries.

Like many leftists Bernie has no idea how billionaires come to exist. The don't dig in their backyard and discover the money, nor does a check appear in the mail.

Most fortunes begin as an idea. Shopping over the internet, a powerful computer on every desk. a phone that's like a supercomputer in every pocket or purse.
Then it takes someone or somebodies that believe in those ideas so deeply they work ungodly hours - frequently allow working a 9-5 job -, somebody that takes failure as an invitation to work harder. And it depends on bringing that idea to market and people and businesses finding it worth buying. And then doing it all over again trying to keep the product desirable and fending off competitors, dealing with government bureaucracy.

And even then few will succeed; most companies fail within five year. Even among those that survive few ever reach the billion dollar plateau.

There are approximately 600 billionaires in the US. Bernie's jihad on them seems a tad excessive.

 

[Patriotic Voter]

There about 650 billionaires in the US. I'm not sure why Bernie hates them, because where else would he get the money to fund free stuff for the other 330 million people?

I subscribe to BernieMath: take 7.5% from the 650 billionaires, and 330 million people will get free everything forever.

Bernie Sanders only said he wants nobody to be a billionaire. He does not hate the people who have billions of dollars.

 

[joko104]

No they don't. Google originally was nothing but a search engine. Then they added email. Then they added maps, calendars, etc. No other company has all of the services and products Google offers. Some companies did shrink or go out of business because they did not have enough moneyt to catch up with Google. Not to mention those TV advertisements for an artificial intelligence product, whose competition is . . . Amazon.

Speaking of Amazon, can you name any other company that offers free one-day shipping and two-day shipping, including free return shipping, on select products if you have a membership? That alone makes Amazon a richer company than any of its "competitors" in America, which only "compete' in the sense of selling the asme or similar products in their respective departments. Another way they do it is make their own products. Trivia question: Which company invented the TV Firestick?

We the people (government) subsidizes Amazon $1.47 a package - 2.5 billion packages a year. NO company or person other than Amazon can get 1 day express mail shipping at general 1 week delivery post office prices.

Make your own product, even patent it? If it is selling it there will be 50, 100, 500 listing for Chinese made knock-offs of it within weeks. There is nothing you can do about it. Amazon's position is that they can knowingly take 15 to 30% of the gross sales price for illegal knock-offs because they are who is selling it - though they know it is a pirated product and Amazon is making more off the sale than the seller. Amazon breaks federal laws millions of times a day, using that defense.

It'd be like someone selling illegal machine guns on your website - with 25% of the sales price going directly to you - and maybe even you are warehousing and shipping it (not even just 25% of the profit but 25% off the top) - because you say "it wasn't ME selling it! I'm just an advertising platform, a warehouse operation and a shipping company."

The number of illegal products on Amazon and even more products with strictly illegal ad language (like homemade miracle cure products) is into the tens of millions. NO STORE could get away with that. Congress passed special laws to exempt such as Amazon, that no stores have. You sell a homemade product in your store promising it cures cancer - even if a vendor's display - and you may go to prison or at least a huge fine and ordered to stop. No problem if Amazon does it.

 

[Surrealistik]

Right, but that is not because we have billionaires. That is due to a lot of factors like the decline of unions, years of anemic gdp growth rates, lower productivity growth, competing with workers worldwide in a global economy, rent seeking behavior and so on.

Slow GDP growth rates don't necessitate the creation or growth of wealth gaps, nor does lower productivity growth. Billionaires are one of the foremost driving factors underlying the other, actually relevant things you mentioned, plus gaming tax law, subsidies and pork in their favour, and regulatory capture.