How many “billionaires” actually have a billion dollars to spend though? They usually are “worth” a billion dollars through stocks they can’t sell, with a couple of million in the bank
Except that they do just that by borrowing money against their stocks, which also incidentally allows them to avoid paying taxes. That’s how Musk bought Twitter.
I think it might be a good idea to tax loans like this as income, but I’m not an economist and am not sure what the follow on effects would be. I feel like if there were exceptions it might be used as a loophole, but if there aren’t it might affect poorer people trying to get loans for housing.
This is like saying “they don’t actually have that much oxygen. They’ve got it compressed in massive liquefied tanks. You can’t breathe liquid oxygen, so it doesn’t really count as breathable air. So nevermind that a billionth of the population controls 50% of the oxygen on the planet because the actual gaseous air they breath on the day to day is just an extremely comfortable level of oxygen.”
How many “billionaires” actually have a billion dollars to spend though? They usually are “worth” a billion dollars through stocks they can’t sell, with a couple of million in the bank
Except that they do just that by borrowing money against their stocks, which also incidentally allows them to avoid paying taxes. That’s how Musk bought Twitter.
I think it might be a good idea to tax loans like this as income, but I’m not an economist and am not sure what the follow on effects would be. I feel like if there were exceptions it might be used as a loophole, but if there aren’t it might affect poorer people trying to get loans for housing.
Yup, their latent wealth grows faster than what they borrow to use as actual spending, they literally don’t spend money, they accumulate it
Aaaannnd the inevitable arrival of the “nothing we can do about it guyz, it’s hopeless, we just need to accept it.”
It takes a different form from time to time, but the ubercapitalist cultists always show up in these threads.
This is like saying “they don’t actually have that much oxygen. They’ve got it compressed in massive liquefied tanks. You can’t breathe liquid oxygen, so it doesn’t really count as breathable air. So nevermind that a billionth of the population controls 50% of the oxygen on the planet because the actual gaseous air they breath on the day to day is just an extremely comfortable level of oxygen.”