• Formfiller@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    46
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    1 day ago

    Confiscate all personal wealth over 100million. Break up any company worth over 50billion. Take all institutions of public service out of private equity: utilities, house, prisons, retirement, schools, postal, healthcare and public land management. Reform the legal system to not give the wealthy any advantage. Do not allow elected representatives. Do not allow politicians to take private money for political campaigns. Allowing people and corporations to acquire this type of power has been humanity’s whole problem for thousands of years

    • Maeve@kbin.earth
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      3 hours ago

      Do not allow elected representatives

      I think I get your general gist, but would you please explain, so I’m not mistaken? Thanks.

    • Manticore@lemmy.nz
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      16
      ·
      edit-2
      20 hours ago

      Billionaires technically don’t have much personal wealth. They leverage their illiquid assets as collateral to take out massive loans. Which they can later cover with taking out even bigger loans.

      The liquid wealth of the wealthy is very low, technically in debt. This is another way they can avoid paying tax as they technically don’t have much of anything, and the reason why ‘declining to take a salary’ is typically meaningless.

      • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        18 hours ago

        That feels like an easy loophole to patch- Treat loans as income. Maybe tax it at some separate progressive rate so people using small loans as intended don’t get fucked. But if Muskerberg has $100 million in loans taken out against his stock, taxing $90 million of that as income would make a difference. Especially if the top rate is like 90%.

      • aesthelete@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        edit-2
        18 hours ago

        Buy borrow die

        It does have a notable Achilles heel though, which is that the underlying portfolio has to keep appreciating in value.

        • Manticore@lemmy.nz
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          edit-2
          6 hours ago

          Well if it doesn’t, sell your stock to yourself a la Elon Musk, who sold X at a loss to XAI (a company he also majority owns). The ‘loss’ of ~6bil in value (iirc) means he can now gain ~6bil from any other sources without paying gains tax.

    • Wilco@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      20
      ·
      1 day ago

      Get private equity out of hospitals and forbid them land ownership.

      The current private equity hospital grift:

      1. Buy a non profit hospital and ruthlessly expand it, putting all other competition out of business.
      2. Become the hospital’s own 3rd party billing center (same name)
      3. Become the hospitals own 3rd party collection service, a law firm.
      4. Collect millions per year from the government to pay off unpaid hospital bills.
      5. Collect those bills with the third party collections by any means, garnishment, denials of service. 6. 6. Get the local courts dependent upon the court fees involved.
      6. Collect legal fees on top of the actual medical bills, thus “triple dipping” and getting paid three times … all for services that were mostly paid for by insurance already.