This is what happens when you don't tax rich people, I'm dead serious. You have to keep the money moving in rational ways or it all devolves to hustle - ThreadSky

chathamharrison.bsky.social • 3 days ago

This is what happens when you don't tax rich people, I'm dead serious. You have to keep the money moving in rational ways or it all devolves to hustle

Reposted from Faine Greenwood

this is a good joke but this also speaks to a truth about 2025 America: the growing, horrible sense among many people that running scams is the only path to basic financial stability

this is, of course, utter poison for human society

Comments

fiftysixspecial.bsky.social•2 days ago

The whole reason you have a wealth tax is to prevent the kind of oligarchical consolidation that we’re seeing right now

clearcutcontempt.bsky.social•2 days ago

Taxes are a form of damage mitigation. The wealthy are a massive drain on resources, they won’t pay to fix anything that they do and taxes are how money is allocated to that effect. If they won’t pay taxes, there’s always an alternative…

ragtagop.bsky.social•2 days ago

You don't slay the dragons to rescue the princesses, you do it because the hoards they're sitting on does nothing but get sat on instead of flowing to where it could do anything.

mrontology.bsky.social•2 days ago

Taxation and Representation!

robbinsa.me•2 days ago

doubly so when you don't prosecute white collar crime

edwardericsonjr.bsky.social•3 days ago

Need to institute a "maximum wage" law. Basically confiscate by income tax every penny over, say $3 million a year regardless of the source. These motherfuckers are too rich for anybody's own good.

grumpyrootbeer.bsky.social•2 days ago

Tax income from rents and investments at a higher rate than income earned from labor.

devoureroftime.bsky.social•2 days ago

I think if you hit a maximum amount of money you should be forced to prestige like in Call of Duty. The government takes your assets and you start at square one again, but you legally get a gold star by your name.

chathamharrison.bsky.social•2 days ago

Honestly a lot of these sickos would relish that, even if they don't realize it

edwardericsonjr.bsky.social•2 days ago

After a few million the money is just keeping score. We need to take the money and make them keep score some other way. Gold stars would be fine.

i-jamieous.bsky.social•2 days ago

Or a proportional maximum. The CEO can earn a maximum of 20 times what the lowest paid worker in the organisation earns, even if they are outsourced.

Sure you can earn $5,000,000 per year, but only if you first pay the cleaners $250,000 pa each for vacuuming your office.

20x may be too generous

maxp94.bsky.social•2 days ago

The problem is that that’s not actually how they make money. IIRC Jeff Bezos’ actual salary is in the 6 figures. He has net worth, not income.

patrick4872.bsky.social•2 days ago

Yes, although he is a bit unusual in that he had an initial equity stake in the company. The big executive pay days for companies come from equity options, restricted stock units, etc. Same way all high paid employees get paid.

i-jamieous.bsky.social•2 days ago

Yup, it's a scheme designed in the 80s to align the interests/incentives of CEOs with those of shareholders. Destroying the natural affinity with & responsibility towards employees, suppliers & customers. A root cause of the 2008 crash & the next one .
Rentier needs to become a dirty word again.

patrick4872.bsky.social•2 days ago

Shareholders and CEOs, senior management in general, interests are most definitely not aligned, then or now. It’s something a lot of people overlook.

khalid390465965.bsky.social•2 days ago

yes
a lot of billionaire expenses are done on low-interest loans off their stocks

edwardericsonjr.bsky.social•2 days ago

Yes! Makes for an interesting accounting problem. Assets can be taxed though.

maxp94.bsky.social•2 days ago

This is why they don’t react to income taxes that much but capital gains taxes make them spaz out

dasdoak.bsky.social•2 days ago

Many people agree on this.

https://bsky.app/profile/dasdoak.bsky.social/post/3ldscpsdth224

kaltnull.bsky.social•2 days ago

If you want to keep a democracy you also have to tax rich people because certain amounts of wealth are EXCLUSLIVELY attainable through de-facto-not-de-jure criminal means, and if you DO NOT tax that wealth, it is INEVITABLE that the criminals will buy government and start running everything.

marleymack.bsky.social•2 days ago

America as a nation state has always been run on scams. From its inception until 2025. Slavery is a scam. amerikkka runs on the exploitation of labor and scamming poor people. Money has never moved in rational ways in this country.

dalemccune.bsky.social•2 days ago

The country that Trump envisions will never happen without taxing the wealthy and boosting a middle class that can afford domestic production. It’ll never happen as long as Companies value shareholders wallets over employees wallets.

williamthecat.bsky.social•2 days ago

💯

green496.bsky.social•2 days ago

Tax the rich, build affordable public housing with the proceeds.

This is a wealthy and prosperous country, and we have the means to make life materially better for many people. We just choose not to.

stickymoney.bsky.social•2 days ago

Capitalism.

devoureroftime.bsky.social•2 days ago

I mean literally we have a decades long case study of this and it's systemic racism against black people.

Remove all options for wealth to be redistributed to you (better jobs, better education, better infrastructure) and people will turn to hustling to grasp any sort of social mobility.

clayranck.bsky.social•2 days ago

me to the billionaires: you have to understand that we are taxing you for your own good because we don’t want you to hurt yourself

korl.is•2 days ago

On second thoughts, maybe just an inheritance tax. The money will free itself up after. Yknow.

celticdragon1.bsky.social•2 days ago

Killed one of the kids who would have inherited unfortunately

jugbandjames.bsky.social•2 days ago

"But then nobody would have an incentive to BECOME a billionaire!!"

That's fine.

maxmoranhi.bsky.social•2 days ago

That’s the point actually

log-with-cool-bugs.bsky.social•2 days ago

the gig economy -> grift economy pipeline could use a good retrospective analysis if we survive this

owdoo.com•2 days ago

Capitalism is a scam.

ziggybull.bsky.social•2 days ago

We need a societal view towards money to become something like "it's like water. If it doesn't flow it becomes stagnant and gives you cholera."

chathamharrison.bsky.social•2 days ago

It has a sort of "currency", if you will

ziggybull.bsky.social•2 days ago

Going to edit the dictionary to claim the word's origin is "Current C" where the c stands for cash.

fiftysixspecial.bsky.social•2 days ago

“Money is a tool, like a hammer, and only has utility when being used; it has no inherent ontological value in and of itself” needs to be drilled into brains starting in kindergarten

davidjayindie.bsky.social•2 days ago

Money has value only if both parties using it as a trading tool believe it does. Can't believe it's become such a controversial opinion.

fiftysixspecial.bsky.social•2 days ago

I blame Locke and his fetish for silver during the Recoinage of 1696

caseinsensit1ve.bsky.social•2 days ago

Starts turning into a mosquito orgy too, and those bloodsuckers spread malaria to people that don't even drink from it.

lordofthe7s.bsky.social•2 days ago

It’s like blood. If it’s coursing through the veins it’s doing what it’s supposed to and keeping things healthy. But if one person is hoarding all of our blood, people will die.

ziggybull.bsky.social•2 days ago

"The Lifestream, but for economics" is how we wean society off capitalism.
Nobody needs a Sephiroth of the Market.

cheerfulexgf.bsky.social•2 days ago

Conservatorships for all billionaires to start.

mattpb.bsky.social•2 days ago

All billionaires to be owned by banks.

Call it the Charles Foster Kane Act.

famousmortimer.bsky.social•2 days ago

* tax rich people; when they die, tax the hell out of their heirs

* punish scams ruthlessly, including - I can't stress this enough - when rich people do them

* treat white collar crime as seriously as e.g. burglary

* regulate parasitic industries out of existence (crypto, private equity, etc)

🤷‍♂️

slashanon.bsky.social•2 days ago

White collar crimes should be treated *more harshly* than burglary

hipsofjw.bsky.social•2 days ago

It is the natural result of our society's complete subservience to Influencer Culture. You could see this start with MLMs on Facebook in the early 2010s. These no-nothing idiots now run our politics, media and cultural institutions. Your ability to scam has replaced any expertise or knowledge.

kaputotter.bsky.social•2 days ago

I mean. Yes? But..... Pointing to Reagan deregulations, to be quite honest. Grifters are gonna grift. And they've been grifting a long, long, long, long time.

hipsofjw.bsky.social•2 days ago

It's the severity. Nearly every celebrity of our internet era is looking to sell some memecoin, nootropic sugar pill, dating guide or get-rich quick scheme. They are in millions of people's faces every day and are supported by major corporations, politicians and media companies. This is new.

internetliker.bsky.social•2 days ago

catfishsushi.bsky.social•2 days ago

That would be a darkly perfect plate for Andrew Tate, who scammed women into making money for him by camming.

phishphillet.bsky.social•2 days ago

Followed by violent upheaval.

carpederpum.bsky.social•2 days ago

Having lived in some really backwards third world countries, I can see this is where the USA is heading. It's 90% of the way there now, just the finishing touches are being added, such as investing heavily in security instead of society and the future, and a culture of skimming and scamming others

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