No Stupid Questions

Billionaires don't have billions in their bank accounts. That's not how wealth works. It's not like they're sitting on a pile of cash and just want more. The vast majority of it is tied to property and businesses. Thinking that just because one could comfortably retire that they should is kind of like telling a runner to stop running after having completed their first marathon. They're a runner - runners run. A person who became a billionaire views making money the same way. It's what they do. It's what they're good at and derive meaning from.

I think 5 million is ok number as a top. As long as it has been earned working.

$5 million is the threshold where you start to not need to work full time if you’re not old age. Like, you can basically have 40 working years of your life back and not sacrifice on milestones like owing a home, having a family, security in your elder years, and a comfortable life..

But the yachts. How would you get yachts with a mere $1M - $5M? And jets?

Enough to cover their needs: from shelter and food, to enriching experiences and opportunities. We could all have this if we taxed the rich and corporations adequately as we once did.

Agree. Billionaires shouldn't exist.

Personally, every penny you have in money/assets/stocks over £1b is taxed at 100% in exchange you get a medal that says "I beat capitalism" and a statue.

I think it should be percentage based, not fiscally based. That way it can adapt and grow with the times. I also think all income should be taxed, as it stands only certain types of income are taxed, and at different rates. Not surprisingly your W-2 taxes (taxes taken out of your paycheck) are one of the highest tax rates you can have on income. I also think tax breaks shouldn’t be a thing at all either. If the government wants to promote something they can offer a rebate so there’s a cap on how much they promote it, and it’s not an endless give away. Finally, expenses are the cost of doing business, and you shouldn’t be able to hide income because you paid money to make money.

The fact that I can buy a property, get a tax break because I’m paying interest on a mortgage, rent the property out for more than my mortgage, claim that as a business, then claim the mortgage as an expense for said business, and end up not paying any taxes on charging someone else to pay for my mortgage, is insane.

In my ideal world there would be no tax breaks period, you pay what is owed end of story. Anything below the median income (50%) isn’t taxed, anything above the median is taxed at 1.5% for each percentage point above the median. If you are in the top 10% and make more than 90% of the nation, you get taxed at 60% above the median and can take home 40% of that additional income after the median. In the USA this would be ($251,036-$80,610) x .4 + $80,610 or $148,780.4. If you are in the top 1% ($731,492) that would be a take home of $253,093.73. If you’re Elon Musk (est $400,000,000,000 last year alone) that would be “only” $100,000,000,000. Keep in mind in 2024 he didn’t pay any taxes, and in 2021, he was the highest tax paying individual in US history at $11 billion. Yes he would still be ultra rich, but there would be $300 billion going to taxes last year alone, or roughly 7.5% of all tax income.

This means rich people can still enjoy their money, while still paying their fair share, and if you’re just trying to get by, don’t worry about it, we got you.

This is a difficult question because we don't have an agreed upon baseline of what "living" looks like worldwide.

Some countries may say, "living a long life." Other countries may say, "And a roof over your head." And Other countries may say, "That and a yearly vacation."

Also, it's sad to say that million dollars isn't even "dick around" money anymore. My wife's retired grandparents retired on a million at age 70. They're living okay, very modestly at age 90. Medicine is fucking expensive, hip surgeries, paying for physical therapy, etc. No brand new cars or fancy trips. Just coupon clipping and finding lunch deals.

They're in the trillions now. It's like a disease.

None abolish money.

A simple estimation based on investing that amount of money into a total world stock market index fund (e.g. VTWAX) would be your yearly expenses divided by 3.25% (pretty conservative rate). The idea is that you withdraw 3.25% of your wealth from the stock market every year, and you'll be able to withdraw that much purchasing power every year forever due to compound interest pushing the number up as you withdraw. Realistically if you're not withdrawing the full amount blindly during market downturns you can kick that number up to 4% or even more, but 3.25-3.5% is basically impossible to go broke with, and most likely will quickly increase your nest egg to double/triple/etc in most universes.

So, if my expenses were 50k/year in post-tax money, I would need to invest ~1.5 million in order to withdraw 50k of "free" money per year forever, inflation-adjusted. You can do the rest of the math on how many post-tax expenses a normal person/family has and will quickly reach the conclusion that hey, a billion dollars is kinda fucking crazy.

I'm cautious about using the word "need". No one needs almost anything. That is not the standard we should be judging things. Anyone can point to anything you love and say you don't need it. It can get miserable quickly.

Excessive wealth does corrupt, in many ways so a limit on personal wealth is easily justifiable.

Without writing an essay, a somewhat arbitrary 100 milion seems like a reasonable upper limit if there are some appropriate checks in place. For example, fines need to be proportionate to wealth. A speeding ticket serves a social purpose, but extreme wealth defeats the purpose. Proportionality, so it hurts the rich the same way it hurts the working man making a $200 speeding ticket becomes a $10,000 speeding ticket for the hundred-millionaire. Similarly taxes need to be progressive and at the limit, become 100%.

The key is to never allow personal wealth grow to where it can corrupt the state. Buying up media companies, funding political orgs, buying politicians etc, is a key goal of the wealth limit.

Like why the fuck do we need money anyway? We just use it to get other stuff. Cut out the middleman and just give me the stuff I was getting with money.

If you have more accessible money right now than the poorest person in your country would ever need to survive to the age of country's life expectancy, then you have too much money.

If you think of: the maximum fines leviable by your government for committing a crime; as mere inconvenience - rather than a life-ruining financial burden - then you also have too much money. (Weird punctuation for easier parsing).

These two things may not be mutually exclusive.

My number is between $2,000,000 and $3,000,000. It's enough to live off investment income in a 4% down market, and that's all I will realistically need to have a comfortable life without having to touch the nest egg itself. Psychologically, there is no difference between having $10,000,000 and a billion, so it would seem to me that the upper limit of need is $10,000,000.

As soon as I hit 2-3 million I will retire, no matter how old I am.

As far as 'life changing' goes, I was fortunate to have a few thousand to invest when the market tanked in 2020. Those few thousand turned into $35,000 when the market recovered a few years later, which I used to pay off my student loans and put a down payment on a condo. It wasn't fuck you money, but definitely life changing.

Impossible question to answer:

Costs are so out of whack right now because wealth concentrate at the top.

At the end of the day we’d need a lot less money if money was more aligned with how much work we put in, instead of this “trickle up” society we’ve designed.