Microblog Memes

And this is America right now:

We are a plutocracy, our government sold out long ago and is the most corrupt country of all time.

I know that they say it's actually pretty good and we are a rule of law country without a corruption problem, but unfortunately, that's because we've made corruption and bribery perfectly legal.

If you haven't done this yet, check out Super PACs, long story short it's a cash pipeline with laughably weak oversight, and everybody in government knows exactly why it legal.

In 1970s FBI did a bribery catfish of reps, mayors, and more, and almost half of them took the bait and many were convicted of bribery (ABSCAM).

Starting in 2000s, Super PACs allow unlimited funding and they don't have to declare who gave it to them. The FBI is now investigating furries instead of congress.

It's a madhouse.

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.

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

Great. Now do both.

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?

"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.

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.

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.”

It also contributes to the climate catastrophe by providing copious amounts of oil. It also enjoys the fruits of the exploitation in the Global South, hence it can redistribute said fruits of imperialism to its people, which is indeed better than the US oligarchs hoarding it all, but not by a lot.

worth noting how norway is rich off of oil

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.

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.

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!