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Nobody ears a billion dollars (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by nothingcorporate@lemmy.world to c/socialism@lemmy.ml

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Hi comrades, I'm new here, how do we feel about posting Mastodon content on Lemmy?

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[–] CynAq@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago

Not only nobody "earns" that much money, nobody should have the right to command the amount of influence that kind of money provides.

We are literally talking about FIVE people fucking with the lives of the entire planet.

Even if you add the active politicians of every country on earth, it would be a minuscule number of people controlling the lives of eight billion of us, and the most frustrating part of it is that vast majority of that eight billion thinks this is normal, or even should be encouraged.

[–] Steve@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Most of this wealth is in stocks, though. Their worth is based on the number of shares they own of these companies. For every share they sell the value of the other shares drops a bit. So if Musk or Bezos sold all their shares, to have this money in actual cash, not only would they probably bankrupt their company and crash the stock market, but the cash they got out of it would be only a fraction of what this shows on paper now.

[–] Steve@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I’m not sure how to edit comments so I’m adding this… I agree with the sentiment and how insanely low the minimum wage is. But these billionaires don’t actually have the amount of money most people believe they have. Functionally, it’s nowhere close.

[–] MobileSuitBagera@lemmy.fmhy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

They still treat that money as a real value though. Musk put up a shit ton of Tesla shares to cover the Twitter buy. I think I understand that you mean the big numbers should be slightly smaller big numbers but if they are wielded and function at those levels then that's kinda the same thing.

[–] migo@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

They do - this is a common misconception. If they have 1b, that means that any bank will loan them 1b, which they will use to purchase more businesses and then they have 2b so it means they can take out a loan of 2b - pay previous debt and purchase something else. Rinse repeat.

Of course this is an oversimplification - but having millions in stock is as good as having it in the bank.

[–] sin_free_for_00_days@lemmy.one 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I don't want to put words in your mouth, but are you saying that the workers who built these companies shouldn't be compensated through stock for their contributions? I've just heard your argument a lot and I think, OK, if they don't really control that much wealth, why not spread it around. They wouldn't be losing anything, or not much of value. Really need to have a tax on wealth, above a certain level, in my opinion at least.

Oh, and on the web version of Lemmy, there should be an edit button at the bottom of your post.

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[–] Fenzik@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

“But billionaires’ cash isn’t liquid! They can’t access it until they need $44b to buy a social media company!”

[–] AaronMaria@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

The one good thing about Elon Musk is how he disproves the myths of capitalism like this and meritocracy.

[–] azrael@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

For almost any company shares could hit $0 with no impact to day to day operations (until the shareholders revolted and demand action). The only effect of the share price on a company is that it would be a factor if they wanted to sell new shares of stock to raise funds, which virtually no company ever does. The share price is only important to the people gambling on it.

[–] sin_free_for_00_days@lemmy.one 1 points 1 year ago

The minimum wage is a complete joke. Tie it to median rental prices of the area. Tie it to inflation at the very least (after adjusting for the past decades of inflation). Tax capital and not labor. There is a lot that could be done, but we keep voting these geriatric vampires to DC and they can't seem to give a shit about most of the country.

[–] mr_washee_washee@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

straight leeches man i tell u

[–] senoro@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

I don’t think warren buffet belongs in this group, he has made almost all his money only via his investments in other companies. He hasn’t actively done anything to screw over others. And there are definitely a few other cases where someone has a high net worth and hasn’t really done anything wrong. Gabe Newell owns Valve and forbes estimate his net worth to be around $3-4bn but Valve is a private company that makes games and has a marketplace for other game makers. You could argue that Valve promotes gambling via cases in games but thats really the extent of the bad things Valve has done.

[–] tracyspcy@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 year ago

Why increase salaries when you can provide employees with a credit line instead?