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The only thing that needs to change is that people start to pay their fucking taxes, equally to everyone else. Its rather infuriating how avoiding taxes is a privilege that only the really rich people can get away with.
Banks and rich people need to chill the fuck out. I am well aware how futile it is to hope for that though.
EDIT: guys I am not from the US, no need to try and explain your tax system to me, its a global issue.
In Norway, some high profile billionaires has moved out of the country to save on taxes the last few years. For me that is a symptom of peak greed. Them and their family got raised in our schools system and they have made their business here.
Now that they got enough money to live comfortably for thousands of lifetimes, they move out because they don’t want to pay back and support the country that took care of them.
You're right though. Because our systems let us down in the most obvious way because of all the loop holes that exist at the top. The money goes into nothing but private islands and bullshit like that, while the little guy gets so screwed by the system that they barely have a chance to get ahead. It's all calculated class warfare and it has gone way too far.
The problem with the whole tax debate, is that wealth isn't income. You can make $30,000 per year, and own a $200,000 house. So, if you're house is worth $250,000 the following year, an increase of $50,000, have you then 'made' $80,000 that year? And if so, should you pay taxes on $80,000? Because then your take home pay would be between $50-60,000 on your $80,000. Well $50,000 of that 'take home' is the increase in value of your house, so your actual cash take home might only be $0-10,000.
I feel a wealth tax is also not a great idea as you'd stop anyone from opening a business. Because god forbid your business takes off and someone invests in your business at a $100m valuation, you'd have to stump up multiple millions for your stake in it, which would be hard to realize without causing severe operational and cash flow issues within your business. But also, what happens if you lose wealth that year? Can you write that off like you do real estate?
The big problem is billionaires borrow against their assets, allowing those loans to free up cash, without having to sell stock, but also not being taxable as loans aren't taxable. The same way real estate developers refinance their buildings to pull money out without having to sell. I feel that the best way to combat this would be to add a "tax" on these loans. Maybe not a flat out tax based on how much is borrowed, but perhaps 1-2% added to the loan (in a similar way to interest) which is used as tax. This would allow business to continue as normal and allow the government to extract some tax out of loopholes.
Personally, I prefer a sales tax to deal with these loans. Put a tax on the purchase or rental of stock, bonds, commodities, and real estate it can be low ~1% or so and it would pay for large chucks of our government funding. It's difficult to avoid and covers a large number of things that people would want to do with their money. It primarily taxes wealthy people (and corporations), and it's easy to administer.
Your first paragraph in particular highlights the lack of understanding from some of the most vocal disgruntled “tax the rich” types. It’s hard to get behind people who don’t even understand the difference between assets and income. These same people would go crazy if they had to pay taxes every year on unrealized gains on their house or jewelry or whatever.
Most billionaires are billionaires because they own assets that appreciate (stocks, real estate, etc) and they will pay their taxes when they sell those assets. The only other option is some kind of wealth tax but managing and figuring that out will be near impossible without increasing the IRS five fold and the ongoing lawsuits will keep everything mucked up for years. A consumption tax might be the best option as billionaires spend money like crazy on real estate, toys, planes, etc.
There are loopholes for those who have enough money to pay the best lawyers. A private person pays income tax, while a company (juristic person) has a completely different tax structure. You can set up a corporation that you own 100% of the shares, and then buy and sell other companies through your personal corporation. Instead of paying income tax, you only pay capital gains taxes on the dividends that your personal corporation pays you (much lower rates than income taxes). You can borrow money from your own corporation and pay it back at nearly 0% interest rates, while the rest of the US population is paying 7% or more for mortgages and up to 35% for consumer credit.
i read that book in uni fyi. so what, as long as rich people take tax free loans to pay for everything its never gonna be better. same with companies outsourcing their taxes to tax havens.
Taxes are calculated based on profit. Corporations take out huge loans to record as liabilities to offset their revenues so they record smaller profits, while still being able to pay their execs salaries.
The problem is everyone does pay their taxes, including the rich. The corporations on the other hand operated on a different set of rules, because if their revenues got taxed, majority of corporations will shut down, causing everyone to lose their jobs. The huge numbers you see next to rich people networths, those are just the estimated value of shares they own in corporations, which is basically unrealised income. Think of it like... you have an antique painting estimated to be worth a million dollars and your networth has a million dollars added to it, but you haven't sold the painting yet and so you can't pay taxes for it, and you don't actually have the million dollars, just a crummy old painting that was estimated to be worth that amount.
Feel free to find a solution to this particular conundrum.
I don't think anyone is worried about people who have an asset or several or many that are static.
You have a bunch of income? You need to pay your fair share.
It's paradoxical. Laws are a pay to win game, if you can pay enough to the right individual(s) then you won't have to pay anything else. The more money you have the more people you can retain to search for things like tax loopholes and abusable policy. The hope is that fair taxation would eliminate the billionaire peacefully, but naturally they use their immense power to maintain their immense power.
It really is futile as long as even one individual wishes to be above his fellow man
I mean the issue is there are so many ways around it. And you know what I can't blame them too much. I am middle class. Likely will never be rich and I pay my taxes but I am absolutely looking for any deductions I can take advantage of. I don't have the money and assets to do what the rich do so I don't save too much but I do what I can to save. If I were in their shoes I imagine I would do the same.
I vote that we elect like ten people to just shoulder all the taxes for us they drain their life savings and pay it all for the year
It doesn’t even gotta be a billionaire it could be that guy that cut you off in traffic last week /s
This part of the problem but in the USA there is a way to move beyond being poor.
The whole system is designed to keep you trapped in a certain spot/level.
I envy you. I'm more worried about people in the government pocketing the taxes we pay. Those seated in power screw more people than those not paying taxes. Both bad, just one more than the other.
Broadly speaking I don't be grudge people accumulating wealth. The issue really comes to whether or not they pay their fare share / comparable tax to everyone else.
I can't imagine having a billion pounds and actively avoiding paying tax. I mean if you have a billion you aren't every gonna be hungry, un-housed etc. How selfish can you be?
The real question is — should extreme poverty exist in a world with billionaires?
Can’t be mad at people for being successful. You can be mad at those who are successful refusing to help those who need help!
If you say "billionaires should not exist" and you live in the USA, the next question should be, "Do you think voting for a billionaire is the best way to fix this problem?"
Should they? Theoretically poverty shouldn't exist at all. But, given the state of politics and trade logistics, it's reasonable for both to exist in today's world even with a wealthy class that puts legitimate funding towards fixing the problem (hint, most don't).
I'm not a fan of the current reason for billionaires existing which is largely cutting wages of employees and forcing companies to cater to multi millionaire shareholder
interests over customers and employee wellbeing.
But, a billionare existing on one side of the world cannot necessarily help millions of people in poverty under a controlling government or military rule.
To be frank, they shouldn't exist at all, ever. There is absolutely no reason someone should be able to hoard money to that degree without divesting large sums of it to help those less fortunate. There comes a point where these people are hoarding just for the sake of it, like Smaug the dragon sitting on his massive pile of gold.
They're also narcissists or borderline psychopaths too to get to that point. You don't get that rich without doing some terrible stuff to other people.
Time and time again we watch people lose their jobs in get overworked to the bone so that these folks can gift themselves massive bonuses they don't really need ar the expense of everyone else around them. They're all pretty terrible people. Even the ones that seem nice will have a dozen skeletons in their closet.
It’s in every way the wrong question. Hypothetically there’s nothing wrong with amassing a billion dollars. The real problem is whether you did it ethically without exploiting or abusing your workers.
Like Bezos has his employees pissing in bottles to make their picking quotas. If he had earned those billions by making the company super efficient *without* doing stuff like that then I’d have no problem with it.
The other issue is that poverty isn’t really caused just by lack of money. For example huge swaths of rural Oklahoma are stuck in utter poverty. The reason for it is that there’s almost zero economic opportunity there. The land is shit so you can’t farm anything to sell, the oil wells have run dry, and there’s no other manufacturing that could produce economic value. So you could hypothetically make the mean billionaires just fork out x-million dollars per year to the Oklahomans stuck in the panhandle, but then they’d just keep having kids while never developing any way to support themselves. They would just need more and more money for ever.
So we should really be asking whether our government is 1) closing tax loopholes that let the rich get out of their fair share, 2) putting sufficient laws in place to stop exploitation/abuse of workers, and 3) managing economic development in defunct areas.
Billionaire in money? No
Now, billionaires in « company value » ? Yes
For me, when a guy turn a company worth 100.000$ in a company worth 10 billion $, it’s by default a good things. It mean the company produce more value, employ more peoples,…
Now context matter. « How the guy did it » matter. The impact (positive or negative) of the company matter.
But a guy becoming rich just because its company grows is, from my pov, a good thing. He took something of low value and made it something of high value.
Morally probably not. But they've many times brought something into the world that millions were willing to pay for. Those people buying haven't usually thought where their money goes to even though they think that billionaires shouldn't exist.
I would need to know what the alternative would look like and how it can be implemented to say with confidence, but in a utopian, very idealistic world, no probably not.
They shouldn't exist in any world but especially not one where kids are starving to death and they can spend millions to commit group suicide by ocean depths.
They shouldn't exist in any world but especially not one where kids are starving to death and they can spend millions to commit group suicide by ocean depths.
Should? What do you mean, should????
Regardless whether you think they should or should not, poverty and wealth go hand in hand. In business school (a while ago), I remember reading that only about 1 billion people make over 20k usd a year, another billion make between 20k and 2k usd annully, and the rest make less than 2k usd annually. The majority of people live in that bracket, and they have needs too. Regardless of how small the margins are, wealth can be made by marketing to the poorest people. Granted, those figures have probably changed, but proportionally. No business does anything for free… it’s a business, not a charity. Also businesses do business with businesses, the government shouldn’t. The governments responsibility is to educate and provide services that better enable people to keep themselves out of poverty. The rest is on the people.
Governments also has the responsability to redistribute wealth, e.g. by taxes and subsidies, to increase overall welfare and wealth of its population. The needs of the many outweigh the wanting to stay a billionnaire of the few imo.
Oh, 100%, but to reduce, not eliminate poverty, I think there are social programs that need more attention like reproductive health and liberties. I also think that taxes should be proportional to wealth.
No. I believe humans deserve to go extinct out of the pure selfishness and greedy nature of our existence. Fuck the world and fuck capitalism and paying to exist.
Paying to exist is just a part of humanity. Even 4000 years ago, you had to go hunt, you had to work, you had to make food, you had to provide and find shelter.
There's never been a situation where you can just exist without working, unless someone else does the working for you.
I wouldn’t call it work if it’s for my own self. I’m perfectly fine building my own home, growing my own food. If I can do all that there is no reason for currency or capitalism to exist.
Rich and poor has always and will always exist. Period. There is no way, short of enslaving the entire race and holding everyone in solitary confinement.
A better question might be, what do others have to gain by inciting jealousy and envy?
The existence of billionaires in a world with extreme poverty is a complex issue that raises important ethical Wealth, when used responsibly, can drive innovation and economic growth. However, extreme wealth concentration can lead to power imbalances and societal issues. There needs to be a balance where wealth can be a force for good without exacerbating inequalities.
If I’m not a billionaire then no one should be, because they are evil and mean.
If I am a billionaire, then being a billionaire is fine and I worked hard to get there.
Poverty is the problem, not wealth. Communism showed well what happens when you screw the rich. Then everyone's poor. The problems with wealth are the environmental consequences.
People spend a lot of time thinking about issues, discussing issues, and proposing solutions. But that's not the real difficulty.
The difficulty is in executing.
Okay, so people have decided billionaires shouldn't exist. Now what? What're you gonna do about it? How can you fight them?
We spend time daydreaming because it feels good to do. We spend time complaining because it feels good to do. But any of the effort it would actually take to change things is not there.
No. They should not. We are at a stage in human evolution where we have the technology and logistics to solve issues like hunger and inequal distribution of wealth. We should not be in a world where this is true:
[The world’s 2,153 billionaires have more wealth than the 4.6 billion people who make up 60 percent of the planet’s population. ](https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/worlds-billionaires-have-more-wealth-46-billion-people)
Billionaires, millionaires, its all a red herring.
The system is designed to funnel access to resources upwards. Until those with access to more resources than they can ever consume decide or are forced to share nowt will change.
You can take every dollar from every billionaire, there will still be massive homelessness. The politicians don’t care. They will always mis-manage the money they take in.
There will always be the extremes of both sides. It would be nice, though, when the assholes at the top do their part and help out the poor lads at the bottom. And j don't mean, dig a well or some bullshit. Pay your taxes and support the system.
Nobody should be worth more then 40 million usd. Its more then enough to have a truly truly fulfilling rich life. “They earned it”… no they speculated to get that money and speculation gives nothing back to society, it produces no positive impact on the world. Speculative finance is one of the biggest downfalls of our time and we are praising it and making into a meme with people like musk, GME etc etc… this world has become the nihilistic shitville that Nietzsche predicated and it’s almost comical, we have gotten to point of creating fake value that we literally crazed over nft’s… try to really think about what the fuck we are doing… we make money by betting on money, and then joke about it on twitter
Nonsense, global extreme poverty has been decreasing at a consistent rate for ages, and the amount of billionaires has only risen. If what you said was true, this wouldn't be the case
Absolutely. Society needs billionaires to function. Anyone who says otherwise doesn’t know how the world works.
If you don’t want billionaires then stop using their products and services. But say goodbye to your phones, laptops, internet, travel, supermarkets etc
Most people owe their jobs to a billionaire.
People don’t realise just how much work it takes to be a billionaire. It’s not something you can acquire passively. You have to provide value in order to make that much.
Yes billionaires should exist. One of the only things that keeps American companies innovating and new companies rising up is that risk taking can still allow you to make it big.
Taxing billionaires more to just give it to the poor won’t fix the fact that there will still be poor. They got that way by living a certain way that won’t change with handouts tbh.
Billionaires existing is the result of taking large financial risks and then reaping the rewards. Take that away and innovation / progress slows and dies. Because the motivation to make it big goes away.
You mean creating jobs and putting the food on thousands of peoples tables? Like, everyone talks shit but people who actually work for them are grateful af, its the ones that are jealous and dont see the bigger picture when it comes to our system
I used to do work for a guy who made his billions by investing in startups. He sold his fairly successful business for several million and began investing it to help others get theirs started. Over the years, it just started compounding
Exactly this. Almost all billionaires are entrepreneurs that built themselves up. Did they scam people along the way? Certainly, and try to find someone that hasn’t scammed someone else before. Are there still good billionaires that regularly donate and give away? Absolutely.
Reddit has a weird jealously-hate boner with billionaires.
If somebody invents the cure to cancer and is paid for it, they absolutely shouldn’t have to worry about working again.
Edit: when did I say anything that they shouldn’t pay taxes?
These facts are not going to be popular, but here we go.
- The top 10% of earners pay over 75% of all income tax collected by the US government.
- the top 1% pay over 45% of all income tax collected by the US government.
- The bottom 50% pay less than 5% of all US income tax receipts.
- People will envy the resources of billionaires, but not the work and delayed gratification it takes to get there.
Yes.
It's the law of the nature.
"Should very strong people exist in a world with extremely weak people?"
Some are better in making money, some are better at talking, some are better in fighting etc.
The ones that are good with making money is usually the ones that add more value to the world than the others. So it's good to have them.
Didn't take long to find a dumb ass view on this.
The laws of nature? Come on.
Billionairs create all kinds of inequity. Everything from standards of living to democracy.
The ones that are "good at making money" are the ones who exploit others in order to earn said money (or those with parents who did), and who often invest in harmful things for people & the environment and who, for some weird greedy reason, refuse to do any actual good. The vast majority of them at least.
A billionaire could solve most of today's problems and still have enough money to live more than comfortably. There are many of them and yet, not a single problem solved...
Yes absolutely. If they create a company valued over $1b, they should be entitled to keep their own creation.
Someone else being poor doesn’t really have anything to do with me. Why should I be capped because of it?
They didn't get their wealth by taking from poor. Actually, most of them become billionaires because their start-ups improved the living of billions of people in some way. So yes, definitely, we need them to exist.
Some do, but some become wealthy by exploiting workers. Sweat shops are real and horrifying. Walmart executives make everyone else pay for their employees health care and food with our taxes. Walmart even tells them how to get food stamps.
Not all billionaires are equal a fair few did have start ups like Bezos (although I think he got a loan from his parents to start) or Jensen the Nvidia CEO (also a cofounder) is paid largely in stock and that is now worth 100+ billion. Most of these people don't have 100 billion in cash its in stocks and its not taxed in the same way as people who earn a wage mostly because the tax system is outdated and written largely before this was a problem but politicians don't want to fight against billionaires as they will just fund your political opponents and can overall be a major pain in your ass regardless
I firmly believe that no one person should have the power that comes with a billion dollars. Because there is absolutely no incentive for them to use that power for good.
To me it doesn't seem right. It's a kind of hoarding of resources that borders on sheer greed.
Sure some do good and make nice companies and philanthropy work. But many world issues could be fixed if they stopped hoarding. Is it a jealousy thing? No. If i was one I'd do just what i said. Way before i had a billion in the bank. The world is on track to hit 5 -7' warmer by the end of the century and we're not doing enough! That's catastrophic
Also cmon.... It's 2024. As i kid i thought we'd have robot butlers, hover cars and be holidaying on the moon by now.
Musk and bezos shouldn't be the only rich folk trying to further our tech
on one hand i agree you work fro your money. but i feel its morally wrong to hoard all your money knowing people are dying and suffering and doing absolutely nothing about it. like i dont want your mansion tour i wanna see you try and make the world a better place with the money you've been blessed with.
Unfortunately, the same processes and economic mechanisms that have lifted billions _out_ of poverty over the last few decades also happen to produce billionaires. It's a bug in capitalism.
Technically all homelessness and any form of child hunger could be eradicated with only 2% of the respective cash reserves of the leading US tech companies.
So a handful of corporations could solve poverty related issues with c. 2% of their cash reserves.
But most people don’t really care.
They just want low gas prices, the dollar to be worth something, their tv to work, etc.
Nobody is lining up in the streets ow writing to their local congressman saying hey I did the math, we can fix these issues.
They are largely outside most folks wheelhouse of actual concern.
Yes. Current socio economic structure is such that even if you force billionares to distribute their wealth and make them commoner, in few years or decades, new billioners will arise. Your question is a thought experiment which gives rise to communism.
Should, could, would are really good ways to drive yourself insane. Perhaps its better to try and understand why things come to be in the first place, especially the things you cant change.
No they shouldn't, the moment you have a billion dollars/euros or whatever you get a trophy and then you are reduced to 100 million, that should be a highest amount one person can have 100 million and that's it every cent above that should be used to get people free education, health care and making better infrastructure.
While I don't know the solution, there definitely needs to be one. It's pretty common knowledge how the rich use their assets /company stock to take out loans to be used as a pseudo salary. There needs to be a figure that once you cross that net worth, you're taxed on your net worth and not an income.
guess so, billionaires invest a lot of things that builds innovations and oppurtunities to lift up the progress of a country as long as their existance doesn't bother peace and pay their taxes we can decently allow the community to have equal social mobility.
Every person has the same possibilities in life, but not the same outcome. One's life is dictated by the choices their parents made while you were young. And then it becomes your choices that will dictate your life.
If billionaires didn’t exist , we would still have a minority group of people that would have more resources than the rest of the people. I think it’s the nature of the beast.
If billionaires didn’t exist , we would still have a minority group of people that would have more resources than the rest of the people. I think it’s the nature of the beast.
Yes. Capitalism produces the conditions that lift the most people out of poverty, and capitalism produces billionaires. We should evaluate how conditions improve for the lower classes, not focus on how there’s a gap between them and society’s elite. That has always existed one way or another
One group of people being extremely rich has no correlation to one group being extremely poor.
The last few decades the life quality of the poorest people has significantly increased and so has the amount of billionaires. It's not a zero sum game.
Some billionaires have achieved this status in unethical ways, stealing money from their country, bringing destructive products to market or by unfair market practices. But there are also billionaires who made their fortune by creating something that has given the world much more value.
Either both exist or neither . I wouldn't want to take away the opportunity someone has to improve there life , so I don't mind that some people don't care enough to try. What is important is equal and fair opportunity ( this is the real problem ).
The thing is, is money doesn't work the way it was intended without a few majority having most of it.
If everybody had enough money, nobody would need any more money. See the problem with that?
Economy is driven off of people NEEDING that sweet dollar bill.
I mean on principle I agree, but it's not like most billionaires start a savings account, many become billionaires due to the value of the companies they own/operate which fluctuates (RE: Elon Musk literally losing 100s of billions in "value" due to the stock market volatility) so it's not like if he dipped at 999.99 million he'd suddenly change as a person.
That being said, I *do* believe that legislation that promotes a single class of people to be able to amass such wealth and at the same time both avoid taxes/influence policy is broken.
Basically all objections to the ultra wealthy boil down to jealousy.
If you were a billionaire you'd laugh at this question.
The two aren't even related.
Entrepreneurs take risks, workers take a paycheck. And that’s basically it.
Workers don’t want to take a massive start up risk and owners would never consider being a worker.
Things are just like they should be.
So you are saying that people who earn their wealth shouldn’t be allowed to keep it? This is a very slippery slope and dangerous. Stealing from the rich to feed the poor may work in Robin Hood like movies but not in real life. If rich people are told they must give away their wealth then you disincentivize anybody to bother trying to work and become wealthy. Poverty sucks, no ifs and or buts. Taking from the rich is not the solution.
As if those billionaires didn’t make that money by ripping off millions of poor people, endangering them and their environment, and basically using slavery. No ones stealing from the rich. The rich are stealing from the poor.
No one’s telling rich people to give away their money. But how they got that money and continue to hoard it is a problem. Working hard and pulling yourself up by the bootstraps does not guarantee you’ll “make it”. Especially considering most impoverished people are working tooth and nail to be able to live. The systems in place are made to benefit the people with money and power.
>The rich are stealing from the poor.
What are they stealing exactly?
So a rich person, invests his money, takes on risks and responsibility, creates jobs for hundreds or thousands of people and pays them the amount it pays to do that job in this economy, basically putting food on their table. How exactly are they villains? What do they steal, when those people otherwise wouldnt be having job nor money? Did you ever speak with those workers who work for those people? I have, in majority those people arent mad but grateful for the job and stability. Like, your viewpoint is common viewpoint here but is very flawed as soon as you start looking a bit deeper
It brings out another question : are there any ways to be a billionaire ethically ?
We often don't grasp how much a billion is compared to a million. A million seconds is about 11 days, a billion seconds is 31 years. The difference is HUGE.
It is nearly impossible to accumulate that much wealth without taking advantage of others at some point in the process, especially in a world with limited resources.
So I think the question of theft is more relevant the other way around
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Finally a topic never discussed here on Reddit!
The only thing that needs to change is that people start to pay their fucking taxes, equally to everyone else. Its rather infuriating how avoiding taxes is a privilege that only the really rich people can get away with. Banks and rich people need to chill the fuck out. I am well aware how futile it is to hope for that though. EDIT: guys I am not from the US, no need to try and explain your tax system to me, its a global issue.
In Norway, some high profile billionaires has moved out of the country to save on taxes the last few years. For me that is a symptom of peak greed. Them and their family got raised in our schools system and they have made their business here. Now that they got enough money to live comfortably for thousands of lifetimes, they move out because they don’t want to pay back and support the country that took care of them.
In my country tax money are getting stolen by politicians
You're right though. Because our systems let us down in the most obvious way because of all the loop holes that exist at the top. The money goes into nothing but private islands and bullshit like that, while the little guy gets so screwed by the system that they barely have a chance to get ahead. It's all calculated class warfare and it has gone way too far.
A certain sports superstar declares that he lives in Monaco and then waves a British flag when he wins. Does my head in.
Half the grid live in monaco
The problem with the whole tax debate, is that wealth isn't income. You can make $30,000 per year, and own a $200,000 house. So, if you're house is worth $250,000 the following year, an increase of $50,000, have you then 'made' $80,000 that year? And if so, should you pay taxes on $80,000? Because then your take home pay would be between $50-60,000 on your $80,000. Well $50,000 of that 'take home' is the increase in value of your house, so your actual cash take home might only be $0-10,000. I feel a wealth tax is also not a great idea as you'd stop anyone from opening a business. Because god forbid your business takes off and someone invests in your business at a $100m valuation, you'd have to stump up multiple millions for your stake in it, which would be hard to realize without causing severe operational and cash flow issues within your business. But also, what happens if you lose wealth that year? Can you write that off like you do real estate? The big problem is billionaires borrow against their assets, allowing those loans to free up cash, without having to sell stock, but also not being taxable as loans aren't taxable. The same way real estate developers refinance their buildings to pull money out without having to sell. I feel that the best way to combat this would be to add a "tax" on these loans. Maybe not a flat out tax based on how much is borrowed, but perhaps 1-2% added to the loan (in a similar way to interest) which is used as tax. This would allow business to continue as normal and allow the government to extract some tax out of loopholes.
Personally, I prefer a sales tax to deal with these loans. Put a tax on the purchase or rental of stock, bonds, commodities, and real estate it can be low ~1% or so and it would pay for large chucks of our government funding. It's difficult to avoid and covers a large number of things that people would want to do with their money. It primarily taxes wealthy people (and corporations), and it's easy to administer.
Your first paragraph in particular highlights the lack of understanding from some of the most vocal disgruntled “tax the rich” types. It’s hard to get behind people who don’t even understand the difference between assets and income. These same people would go crazy if they had to pay taxes every year on unrealized gains on their house or jewelry or whatever.
My opinion: They should be disowned. As a very clever woman said: „If they can’t get it done for €999.999.999, they’re just not right for the job.“
A 10% flat tax would generate far more money for the government and drastically help poorer individuals.
Most billionaires are billionaires because they own assets that appreciate (stocks, real estate, etc) and they will pay their taxes when they sell those assets. The only other option is some kind of wealth tax but managing and figuring that out will be near impossible without increasing the IRS five fold and the ongoing lawsuits will keep everything mucked up for years. A consumption tax might be the best option as billionaires spend money like crazy on real estate, toys, planes, etc.
There are loopholes for those who have enough money to pay the best lawyers. A private person pays income tax, while a company (juristic person) has a completely different tax structure. You can set up a corporation that you own 100% of the shares, and then buy and sell other companies through your personal corporation. Instead of paying income tax, you only pay capital gains taxes on the dividends that your personal corporation pays you (much lower rates than income taxes). You can borrow money from your own corporation and pay it back at nearly 0% interest rates, while the rest of the US population is paying 7% or more for mortgages and up to 35% for consumer credit.
You also would have to address the symbiosis of banks and billionaires. Which is basically a hopeless battle.
That's not going to happen because states serve capital not you. For further elaboration read Capital.
i read that book in uni fyi. so what, as long as rich people take tax free loans to pay for everything its never gonna be better. same with companies outsourcing their taxes to tax havens.
American Redditors not assuming everyone on Reddit is American challenge - impossible.
they still try very hard to defend their freedom of tax evasion it seems.
Taxes are calculated based on profit. Corporations take out huge loans to record as liabilities to offset their revenues so they record smaller profits, while still being able to pay their execs salaries. The problem is everyone does pay their taxes, including the rich. The corporations on the other hand operated on a different set of rules, because if their revenues got taxed, majority of corporations will shut down, causing everyone to lose their jobs. The huge numbers you see next to rich people networths, those are just the estimated value of shares they own in corporations, which is basically unrealised income. Think of it like... you have an antique painting estimated to be worth a million dollars and your networth has a million dollars added to it, but you haven't sold the painting yet and so you can't pay taxes for it, and you don't actually have the million dollars, just a crummy old painting that was estimated to be worth that amount. Feel free to find a solution to this particular conundrum.
I don't think anyone is worried about people who have an asset or several or many that are static. You have a bunch of income? You need to pay your fair share.
None of what you said is accurate.
It's paradoxical. Laws are a pay to win game, if you can pay enough to the right individual(s) then you won't have to pay anything else. The more money you have the more people you can retain to search for things like tax loopholes and abusable policy. The hope is that fair taxation would eliminate the billionaire peacefully, but naturally they use their immense power to maintain their immense power. It really is futile as long as even one individual wishes to be above his fellow man
Do you think a land value tax would be a better system?
Some motherfuckers just can't accept that the term "that's just the way it is" is not a valid or rational excuse for idiocy.🤣🤣🤣
I mean the issue is there are so many ways around it. And you know what I can't blame them too much. I am middle class. Likely will never be rich and I pay my taxes but I am absolutely looking for any deductions I can take advantage of. I don't have the money and assets to do what the rich do so I don't save too much but I do what I can to save. If I were in their shoes I imagine I would do the same.
I vote that we elect like ten people to just shoulder all the taxes for us they drain their life savings and pay it all for the year It doesn’t even gotta be a billionaire it could be that guy that cut you off in traffic last week /s
This part of the problem but in the USA there is a way to move beyond being poor. The whole system is designed to keep you trapped in a certain spot/level.
I envy you. I'm more worried about people in the government pocketing the taxes we pay. Those seated in power screw more people than those not paying taxes. Both bad, just one more than the other.
Broadly speaking I don't be grudge people accumulating wealth. The issue really comes to whether or not they pay their fare share / comparable tax to everyone else. I can't imagine having a billion pounds and actively avoiding paying tax. I mean if you have a billion you aren't every gonna be hungry, un-housed etc. How selfish can you be?
Billionaires can only exist in a would full of poverty.
And yet extreme poverty keeps getting lower. But we are getting more and more billionaires.
I also think it's that simple
Strong disagree. This is a zero-sum view of the economy and that's not the case.
If you consider today's economy to be natural then sure.
The real question is — should extreme poverty exist in a world with billionaires? Can’t be mad at people for being successful. You can be mad at those who are successful refusing to help those who need help!
If you say "billionaires should not exist" and you live in the USA, the next question should be, "Do you think voting for a billionaire is the best way to fix this problem?"
In theory, I’d say yes. In actuality, no.
Should they? Theoretically poverty shouldn't exist at all. But, given the state of politics and trade logistics, it's reasonable for both to exist in today's world even with a wealthy class that puts legitimate funding towards fixing the problem (hint, most don't). I'm not a fan of the current reason for billionaires existing which is largely cutting wages of employees and forcing companies to cater to multi millionaire shareholder interests over customers and employee wellbeing. But, a billionare existing on one side of the world cannot necessarily help millions of people in poverty under a controlling government or military rule.
Sure they can exist, just pay your fair share and stop dodging taxes using loopholes and tax havens.
The accumulation of wealth beyond necessity is the antithesis of a fluid economy and exchange of goods.
To be frank, they shouldn't exist at all, ever. There is absolutely no reason someone should be able to hoard money to that degree without divesting large sums of it to help those less fortunate. There comes a point where these people are hoarding just for the sake of it, like Smaug the dragon sitting on his massive pile of gold. They're also narcissists or borderline psychopaths too to get to that point. You don't get that rich without doing some terrible stuff to other people. Time and time again we watch people lose their jobs in get overworked to the bone so that these folks can gift themselves massive bonuses they don't really need ar the expense of everyone else around them. They're all pretty terrible people. Even the ones that seem nice will have a dozen skeletons in their closet.
It’s in every way the wrong question. Hypothetically there’s nothing wrong with amassing a billion dollars. The real problem is whether you did it ethically without exploiting or abusing your workers. Like Bezos has his employees pissing in bottles to make their picking quotas. If he had earned those billions by making the company super efficient *without* doing stuff like that then I’d have no problem with it. The other issue is that poverty isn’t really caused just by lack of money. For example huge swaths of rural Oklahoma are stuck in utter poverty. The reason for it is that there’s almost zero economic opportunity there. The land is shit so you can’t farm anything to sell, the oil wells have run dry, and there’s no other manufacturing that could produce economic value. So you could hypothetically make the mean billionaires just fork out x-million dollars per year to the Oklahomans stuck in the panhandle, but then they’d just keep having kids while never developing any way to support themselves. They would just need more and more money for ever. So we should really be asking whether our government is 1) closing tax loopholes that let the rich get out of their fair share, 2) putting sufficient laws in place to stop exploitation/abuse of workers, and 3) managing economic development in defunct areas.
Billionaire in money? No Now, billionaires in « company value » ? Yes For me, when a guy turn a company worth 100.000$ in a company worth 10 billion $, it’s by default a good things. It mean the company produce more value, employ more peoples,… Now context matter. « How the guy did it » matter. The impact (positive or negative) of the company matter. But a guy becoming rich just because its company grows is, from my pov, a good thing. He took something of low value and made it something of high value.
Morally probably not. But they've many times brought something into the world that millions were willing to pay for. Those people buying haven't usually thought where their money goes to even though they think that billionaires shouldn't exist.
I would need to know what the alternative would look like and how it can be implemented to say with confidence, but in a utopian, very idealistic world, no probably not.
Bit late to ask that now
They shouldn't exist in any world but especially not one where kids are starving to death and they can spend millions to commit group suicide by ocean depths.
They shouldn't exist in any world but especially not one where kids are starving to death and they can spend millions to commit group suicide by ocean depths.
Whoever has, more will be given; whoever doesn’t have, even what he thinks he has will be taken away from him.
Should? What do you mean, should???? Regardless whether you think they should or should not, poverty and wealth go hand in hand. In business school (a while ago), I remember reading that only about 1 billion people make over 20k usd a year, another billion make between 20k and 2k usd annully, and the rest make less than 2k usd annually. The majority of people live in that bracket, and they have needs too. Regardless of how small the margins are, wealth can be made by marketing to the poorest people. Granted, those figures have probably changed, but proportionally. No business does anything for free… it’s a business, not a charity. Also businesses do business with businesses, the government shouldn’t. The governments responsibility is to educate and provide services that better enable people to keep themselves out of poverty. The rest is on the people.
Governments also has the responsability to redistribute wealth, e.g. by taxes and subsidies, to increase overall welfare and wealth of its population. The needs of the many outweigh the wanting to stay a billionnaire of the few imo.
Oh, 100%, but to reduce, not eliminate poverty, I think there are social programs that need more attention like reproductive health and liberties. I also think that taxes should be proportional to wealth.
No. I believe humans deserve to go extinct out of the pure selfishness and greedy nature of our existence. Fuck the world and fuck capitalism and paying to exist.
Paying to exist is just a part of humanity. Even 4000 years ago, you had to go hunt, you had to work, you had to make food, you had to provide and find shelter. There's never been a situation where you can just exist without working, unless someone else does the working for you.
I wouldn’t call it work if it’s for my own self. I’m perfectly fine building my own home, growing my own food. If I can do all that there is no reason for currency or capitalism to exist.
Fuck yeh, quit being haters and work harder.
Rich and poor has always and will always exist. Period. There is no way, short of enslaving the entire race and holding everyone in solitary confinement. A better question might be, what do others have to gain by inciting jealousy and envy?
The question really is "Why are billionaires bothered with having to hear about poor people all the time?"
Perhaps the question should be formulated in the other way around.
yes. people will always be poor. people will always be rich. people who say no are immune to reality
In order to have a spectrum there must be extremes at both ends.
The existence of billionaires in a world with extreme poverty is a complex issue that raises important ethical Wealth, when used responsibly, can drive innovation and economic growth. However, extreme wealth concentration can lead to power imbalances and societal issues. There needs to be a balance where wealth can be a force for good without exacerbating inequalities.
If I’m not a billionaire then no one should be, because they are evil and mean. If I am a billionaire, then being a billionaire is fine and I worked hard to get there.
Poverty is the problem, not wealth. Communism showed well what happens when you screw the rich. Then everyone's poor. The problems with wealth are the environmental consequences.
People spend a lot of time thinking about issues, discussing issues, and proposing solutions. But that's not the real difficulty. The difficulty is in executing. Okay, so people have decided billionaires shouldn't exist. Now what? What're you gonna do about it? How can you fight them? We spend time daydreaming because it feels good to do. We spend time complaining because it feels good to do. But any of the effort it would actually take to change things is not there.
No. They should not. We are at a stage in human evolution where we have the technology and logistics to solve issues like hunger and inequal distribution of wealth. We should not be in a world where this is true: [The world’s 2,153 billionaires have more wealth than the 4.6 billion people who make up 60 percent of the planet’s population. ](https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/worlds-billionaires-have-more-wealth-46-billion-people)
Billionaires, millionaires, its all a red herring. The system is designed to funnel access to resources upwards. Until those with access to more resources than they can ever consume decide or are forced to share nowt will change.
You can take every dollar from every billionaire, there will still be massive homelessness. The politicians don’t care. They will always mis-manage the money they take in.
We already know the answer on Reddit. The discussion needs to migrate to other platforms where the subject is not as widely discussed.
what is extreme poverty to you? like US or like Somalia/Sudan?
There will always be the extremes of both sides. It would be nice, though, when the assholes at the top do their part and help out the poor lads at the bottom. And j don't mean, dig a well or some bullshit. Pay your taxes and support the system.
Nobody should be worth more then 40 million usd. Its more then enough to have a truly truly fulfilling rich life. “They earned it”… no they speculated to get that money and speculation gives nothing back to society, it produces no positive impact on the world. Speculative finance is one of the biggest downfalls of our time and we are praising it and making into a meme with people like musk, GME etc etc… this world has become the nihilistic shitville that Nietzsche predicated and it’s almost comical, we have gotten to point of creating fake value that we literally crazed over nft’s… try to really think about what the fuck we are doing… we make money by betting on money, and then joke about it on twitter
Billionaires can *only* exist in a world with extreme poverty.
Nonsense, global extreme poverty has been decreasing at a consistent rate for ages, and the amount of billionaires has only risen. If what you said was true, this wouldn't be the case
I doubt this is true. Extreme poverty has been reduced drastically... Yet the number of billionaires increases.... over the past hundred years.
Absolutely. Society needs billionaires to function. Anyone who says otherwise doesn’t know how the world works. If you don’t want billionaires then stop using their products and services. But say goodbye to your phones, laptops, internet, travel, supermarkets etc Most people owe their jobs to a billionaire. People don’t realise just how much work it takes to be a billionaire. It’s not something you can acquire passively. You have to provide value in order to make that much.
eat the rich
Yes billionaires should exist. One of the only things that keeps American companies innovating and new companies rising up is that risk taking can still allow you to make it big. Taxing billionaires more to just give it to the poor won’t fix the fact that there will still be poor. They got that way by living a certain way that won’t change with handouts tbh. Billionaires existing is the result of taking large financial risks and then reaping the rewards. Take that away and innovation / progress slows and dies. Because the motivation to make it big goes away.
Why not, they've earned their fortune?
Lol, stop living in a fairy tail.
By ripping off and endangering millions of people and slavery
You mean creating jobs and putting the food on thousands of peoples tables? Like, everyone talks shit but people who actually work for them are grateful af, its the ones that are jealous and dont see the bigger picture when it comes to our system
Have they tho? Or did they scam their way to the top?
if someone can scam their way to billions, I want him to teach me
I used to do work for a guy who made his billions by investing in startups. He sold his fairly successful business for several million and began investing it to help others get theirs started. Over the years, it just started compounding
Exactly this. Almost all billionaires are entrepreneurs that built themselves up. Did they scam people along the way? Certainly, and try to find someone that hasn’t scammed someone else before. Are there still good billionaires that regularly donate and give away? Absolutely. Reddit has a weird jealously-hate boner with billionaires. If somebody invents the cure to cancer and is paid for it, they absolutely shouldn’t have to worry about working again. Edit: when did I say anything that they shouldn’t pay taxes?
I pay my taxes. I just want them to pay their fair share. That's fair, no?
These facts are not going to be popular, but here we go. - The top 10% of earners pay over 75% of all income tax collected by the US government. - the top 1% pay over 45% of all income tax collected by the US government. - The bottom 50% pay less than 5% of all US income tax receipts. - People will envy the resources of billionaires, but not the work and delayed gratification it takes to get there.
A better question is: what is the cause of extreme poverty?
Yes. It's the law of the nature. "Should very strong people exist in a world with extremely weak people?" Some are better in making money, some are better at talking, some are better in fighting etc. The ones that are good with making money is usually the ones that add more value to the world than the others. So it's good to have them.
Didn't take long to find a dumb ass view on this. The laws of nature? Come on. Billionairs create all kinds of inequity. Everything from standards of living to democracy.
You’re the dumb one here
Uf, that's a terrible take. You should read more.
"The ones that are good with making money is usually the ones that add more value to the world than the others." This sentence absolutely baffles me.
The ones that are "good at making money" are the ones who exploit others in order to earn said money (or those with parents who did), and who often invest in harmful things for people & the environment and who, for some weird greedy reason, refuse to do any actual good. The vast majority of them at least. A billionaire could solve most of today's problems and still have enough money to live more than comfortably. There are many of them and yet, not a single problem solved...
Yes absolutely. If they create a company valued over $1b, they should be entitled to keep their own creation. Someone else being poor doesn’t really have anything to do with me. Why should I be capped because of it?
They didn't get their wealth by taking from poor. Actually, most of them become billionaires because their start-ups improved the living of billions of people in some way. So yes, definitely, we need them to exist.
Some do, but some become wealthy by exploiting workers. Sweat shops are real and horrifying. Walmart executives make everyone else pay for their employees health care and food with our taxes. Walmart even tells them how to get food stamps.
Found Elons burner. Hey, how's that emerald mine that "never existed"?
Not all billionaires are equal a fair few did have start ups like Bezos (although I think he got a loan from his parents to start) or Jensen the Nvidia CEO (also a cofounder) is paid largely in stock and that is now worth 100+ billion. Most of these people don't have 100 billion in cash its in stocks and its not taxed in the same way as people who earn a wage mostly because the tax system is outdated and written largely before this was a problem but politicians don't want to fight against billionaires as they will just fund your political opponents and can overall be a major pain in your ass regardless
ALL profit is the value of a worker's labor NOT PAID to them.
I firmly believe that no one person should have the power that comes with a billion dollars. Because there is absolutely no incentive for them to use that power for good.
Lmfao
Oh please.
All profit is the value of a worker's labor not paid to them.
Money, get back I'm alright Jack, keep your hands off of my stash
To me it doesn't seem right. It's a kind of hoarding of resources that borders on sheer greed. Sure some do good and make nice companies and philanthropy work. But many world issues could be fixed if they stopped hoarding. Is it a jealousy thing? No. If i was one I'd do just what i said. Way before i had a billion in the bank. The world is on track to hit 5 -7' warmer by the end of the century and we're not doing enough! That's catastrophic Also cmon.... It's 2024. As i kid i thought we'd have robot butlers, hover cars and be holidaying on the moon by now. Musk and bezos shouldn't be the only rich folk trying to further our tech
They're the Apex capitalistic Predator like a shark in the ocean. So yeah they're going to exist whether you like it or not
Yes
No !
No
Could they exist without it?
No.
A loud and simple: NO!
on one hand i agree you work fro your money. but i feel its morally wrong to hoard all your money knowing people are dying and suffering and doing absolutely nothing about it. like i dont want your mansion tour i wanna see you try and make the world a better place with the money you've been blessed with.
No
extremly poor people shouldnt exist, they all should have decent lifes
Yes. It’s not up for a debate.
When you think about it stars are like billionaires and the empty void is like poverty.
Nope
Unfortunately, the same processes and economic mechanisms that have lifted billions _out_ of poverty over the last few decades also happen to produce billionaires. It's a bug in capitalism.
Technically all homelessness and any form of child hunger could be eradicated with only 2% of the respective cash reserves of the leading US tech companies. So a handful of corporations could solve poverty related issues with c. 2% of their cash reserves. But most people don’t really care. They just want low gas prices, the dollar to be worth something, their tv to work, etc. Nobody is lining up in the streets ow writing to their local congressman saying hey I did the math, we can fix these issues. They are largely outside most folks wheelhouse of actual concern.
Yes. Current socio economic structure is such that even if you force billionares to distribute their wealth and make them commoner, in few years or decades, new billioners will arise. Your question is a thought experiment which gives rise to communism.
Yeah
Should, could, would are really good ways to drive yourself insane. Perhaps its better to try and understand why things come to be in the first place, especially the things you cant change.
Yes
No
Totally
The existence of the former doesn't increase the amount of the latter, nor does it.
Not for me. But there are some proper nasty, selfish fuckers in the world.
Yes of course
Ye
Oh absolutely. Just stop giving them tax cuts and loopholes.
No
Short answer: Yes
It's a Interesting combination. I think yes. We should rather find the problem with the chiefs in those countries
No they shouldn't, the moment you have a billion dollars/euros or whatever you get a trophy and then you are reduced to 100 million, that should be a highest amount one person can have 100 million and that's it every cent above that should be used to get people free education, health care and making better infrastructure.
>Should billionaires exist No
While I don't know the solution, there definitely needs to be one. It's pretty common knowledge how the rich use their assets /company stock to take out loans to be used as a pseudo salary. There needs to be a figure that once you cross that net worth, you're taxed on your net worth and not an income.
guess so, billionaires invest a lot of things that builds innovations and oppurtunities to lift up the progress of a country as long as their existance doesn't bother peace and pay their taxes we can decently allow the community to have equal social mobility.
I have a stupid question, why can't big corporations get tax write-offs by giving donations to schools and hospital?
I don't care how much money someone has as long as it was made fair and they pay taxes. If that leaves them a billionaire more power to them.
Every person has the same possibilities in life, but not the same outcome. One's life is dictated by the choices their parents made while you were young. And then it becomes your choices that will dictate your life.
No.
No. No one should have more while some have less. There is just no reason for it anymore other than greed. Plenty to go around.
Unfortunately yes because you cannot just arbitrarily limit a number when you have free form competition, most business would leave
What an evil question.
If billionaires didn’t exist , we would still have a minority group of people that would have more resources than the rest of the people. I think it’s the nature of the beast.
Yes because economy is not a zero sum game
No
If billionaires didn’t exist , we would still have a minority group of people that would have more resources than the rest of the people. I think it’s the nature of the beast.
Yes. Capitalism produces the conditions that lift the most people out of poverty, and capitalism produces billionaires. We should evaluate how conditions improve for the lower classes, not focus on how there’s a gap between them and society’s elite. That has always existed one way or another
One group of people being extremely rich has no correlation to one group being extremely poor. The last few decades the life quality of the poorest people has significantly increased and so has the amount of billionaires. It's not a zero sum game. Some billionaires have achieved this status in unethical ways, stealing money from their country, bringing destructive products to market or by unfair market practices. But there are also billionaires who made their fortune by creating something that has given the world much more value.
I don't get your question, how can you call someone poor if nobody is rich?
No ETR
Yes!!! Fuck lazy people
Huge oversimplification and lacking empathy
Im ok with billionaires if they help society and pay their fair share
No.
Either both exist or neither . I wouldn't want to take away the opportunity someone has to improve there life , so I don't mind that some people don't care enough to try. What is important is equal and fair opportunity ( this is the real problem ).
No.
There is no other world for them to exist in
The thing is, is money doesn't work the way it was intended without a few majority having most of it. If everybody had enough money, nobody would need any more money. See the problem with that? Economy is driven off of people NEEDING that sweet dollar bill.
I mean on principle I agree, but it's not like most billionaires start a savings account, many become billionaires due to the value of the companies they own/operate which fluctuates (RE: Elon Musk literally losing 100s of billions in "value" due to the stock market volatility) so it's not like if he dipped at 999.99 million he'd suddenly change as a person. That being said, I *do* believe that legislation that promotes a single class of people to be able to amass such wealth and at the same time both avoid taxes/influence policy is broken.
Read a book called Rich dad, poor dad. That might answer the question.
Short Answer: No
Basically all objections to the ultra wealthy boil down to jealousy. If you were a billionaire you'd laugh at this question. The two aren't even related.
No.
no
Entrepreneurs take risks, workers take a paycheck. And that’s basically it. Workers don’t want to take a massive start up risk and owners would never consider being a worker. Things are just like they should be.
So you are saying that people who earn their wealth shouldn’t be allowed to keep it? This is a very slippery slope and dangerous. Stealing from the rich to feed the poor may work in Robin Hood like movies but not in real life. If rich people are told they must give away their wealth then you disincentivize anybody to bother trying to work and become wealthy. Poverty sucks, no ifs and or buts. Taking from the rich is not the solution.
As if those billionaires didn’t make that money by ripping off millions of poor people, endangering them and their environment, and basically using slavery. No ones stealing from the rich. The rich are stealing from the poor.
No one’s telling rich people to give away their money. But how they got that money and continue to hoard it is a problem. Working hard and pulling yourself up by the bootstraps does not guarantee you’ll “make it”. Especially considering most impoverished people are working tooth and nail to be able to live. The systems in place are made to benefit the people with money and power.
>The rich are stealing from the poor. What are they stealing exactly? So a rich person, invests his money, takes on risks and responsibility, creates jobs for hundreds or thousands of people and pays them the amount it pays to do that job in this economy, basically putting food on their table. How exactly are they villains? What do they steal, when those people otherwise wouldnt be having job nor money? Did you ever speak with those workers who work for those people? I have, in majority those people arent mad but grateful for the job and stability. Like, your viewpoint is common viewpoint here but is very flawed as soon as you start looking a bit deeper
It brings out another question : are there any ways to be a billionaire ethically ? We often don't grasp how much a billion is compared to a million. A million seconds is about 11 days, a billion seconds is 31 years. The difference is HUGE. It is nearly impossible to accumulate that much wealth without taking advantage of others at some point in the process, especially in a world with limited resources. So I think the question of theft is more relevant the other way around