I really don't mind the principle of somebody owning a lot of stuff, but it should only be allowed after everybody else has at least a home and a decent life. The fact that everybody theoretically has a "chance" isn't enough. Go ahead and indulge your quest for endless acquisition all you want, just not when it makes survival harder for the rest of us.
this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2025
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Money is power. The rich collect political power and business equity and use it to shape society. And, more often than not, their wealth is made by skimming off the top from the labor of their much poorer workers (the exceptions are highly-payed athletes and entertainers, and even then, a lot of their wealth comes from investments, which are usually profits from other people's labor).
The thing is, those two sentiments are completely antithetical. If there's no limit to what one can own, how would there be a limit to what they want? Even if we can't stop people from owning too much, we at least need to make it as hard as possible. 90% tax brackets need to come back.
The thing is, it's hard to take you seriously when you refer to 90% tax brackets. That was income tax, which probably applied to like 8 people in the country. Wealthy people get most of their income from capital gains, which is taxed entirely differently. Go ahead and raise the top income tax bracket to 99.9%, it won't affect billionaires. LPT: wanting to "bring back the 90% tax brackets" is a dead giveaway that someone just repeats what they see in memes.
But anyway, what I said isn't antithetical because I don't have the attitude that possessing wealth is inherently evil. As I tried to make clear, it's only evil to me if other people are deprived. In a world where nobody is threatened by poverty or hardship, having a hobby of collecting diamonds doesn't hurt anyone.
Wealthy people get most of their income from capital gains, which is taxed entirely differently.
Because we can't possibly change how it works so that we can tax capital gains too, right? Give me a break.
In a world where nobody is threatened by poverty or hardship, having a hobby of collecting diamonds doesn’t hurt anyone.
Keep living in fantasy land. How do you think something like that will be achieved, if people are allowed to hoard as much money as they want? What is the incentive to do any good if greed is celebrated and never punished?
someone just repeats what they see in memes
You're just a centrist neoliberal. What you're suggesting is literally what has brought us here.
it’s hard to take you seriously
The feeling is mutual.
Also, when someone starts to dish out personal attacks unprovoked, it's a dead giveaway that they don't actually have a point.
Of course we can change how it works, but not by "bringing back" ineffective 1950s nonsense, or raging at me for calling out how silly that is.
I would not allow people two own this many houses. Laws should limit the number of residential real estate one can have, and maybe even the time of ownership, as many countires already do (e.g. the land remains the property of the state, and you own it for 99 years)
This! I aggre 100% with this.
Like yes, I agree that different jobs requiers different salaries depending on how important they are for the people and how hard it is to not work on your free time. Like, cafes are very nice but we NEED hospitals. An blue collar worker rarely thinks about their job at the end of the day while a manager or higher often do.
Not much has really changed... Or rather when it does some fuck-face comes along and rolls it back.
We seem reluctant to preserve the gains we acquire against entrenched powers. I guess it's not as exciting as obtaining them in the first place.
Right? I mean if everyone's needs are met and equity is universal then what's the point?
It's funny because ""only"" 77 houses seems quaint for the billionaires of today.
I mean most of them are so rich they wouldn't even miss 1 billion of their fortune right?
Or in other words, they could easily buy 1,000 million-dollar homes without even making a dent.
History repeats itself? 😭
I wonder if they called it the Gilded Age at the time, or if that name came after? Our current age feels pretty gilded.
Gilded Age was actually before this - the Gilded Age ended with the first rise of Progressivism on the national stage in the 1900s and 1910s.
The 1930s is the Great Depression - while in part caused by still-unresolved issues of capitalist fuckery inherent in the system that even early Progressives weren't interested in (or able to) resolve, it was also caused, in part, by backsliding during the 1920s caused by the election of right-wing national leaders.
backsliding during the 1920s caused by the election of right-wing national leaders
...well, fuck. time is cyclical after all.
"Those who fail to study the past are doomed to repeat it. Those who study the past are doomed to watch everyone else repeat it."
Time is a flat circle.