Imo, its not that having a billion dollars or more makes u evil, its the fact that you cannot make that much money without exploiting a workforce or a system.
lol remember last year when the Los Angeles Lakers applied for a 5 million dollar "small business" loan and got approved 🤣 while actual small business got denied and went bankrupt.
@@CRAZYBUBBA great question. But when I owned my business I got none. I'm not a proponent of incentives. I think businesses should be competing on a level playing field and that's just not possible if government is picking winners and losers. I don't think it's fair that my taxes go to help competing businesses.
Being wealthy is not inherently evil in itself. What it is evil is the practices some wealthy people engage in, like tax evasion, exploitation of the working class, and, in the US specific case, legal bribing of politicians.
"exploitation of the working class" Whaddaya mean, Marx? Paying more than your competitors, thus losing all your market share to those competitors who pay less and thus offer consumers a lower price? Sounds like you think price controls are a good thing,. How has that worked when tried? Or do you mean that we, the CONSUMERS are exploiting workers by always choosing the lower price product? If so, how is that the fault of the rich?
@@Rabbit80q They don't force them to use a bottle, but they do give them very short breaks. The way to stop that is to work somewhere else, or to form a union to get longer breaks, or for YOU to stop buying from Amazon. Not introduce some 90% income tax.
finally a comment that isnt boot licking billionaires and giving a good argument. Its not evil if you made a good business, pay your workers well and pay your fair share of taxes on the finite resources that is for the whole nation. It is however evil if your paying your workers shitty wages, aggressively combating unions, mistreating them and forcing them to work without proper safety at peak covid etc etc.
Regarding the charitable billionaires. The problem remains that a small group of people is deciding where the money is going. Even if they are well-intentioned, it's entirely possible that they are using it inefficiently, not choosing goals that offer most benefit to humanity as a whole, or are even causing unintended (negative) consequences. They're not accountable, and that's a problem. If they have hidden motives... Well, they might even be using the charities as a cover for illicit or amoral activity.
The fact is any "charitable billionaire" would not remain a billionaire for very long. If the USA capped personal wealth at $1B and redistributed all of that money to the lowest wealth individuals, the bottom third of USA wealth would be totally rid of poverty, and the least wealthy households (including debt) would receive about $50,000. $50,000 to someone like Musk or Bezos is literally not even worth blinking an eye at, they probably have windows worth that much in their houses. But $50,000 to a poor or even average family could be life-changing forever. There's a great humanitarian argument to actually doing this.
@EnterJustice That is not inherently a problem. You assume having more people voicing their opinions is more valuable and leads to better results. The real world begs to differ on that opinion. Take a look at the House of Representatives in Congress. More isn't always better. In fact given the average intellectual capacity of someone in the world, more is normally going to lead to worse decisions that will end up hurting everyone. Not intentionally, but out of ignorance. Billionaires become billionaires by taking the right risks, sacrificing their lives towards building value within society and the world at large. I'm not going to entertain the edge case trust fund babies. I'm focusing on the reality of what it takes for most to reach this level of wealth. They have every right to spend their wealth as they see fit just as you and I are allowed to. Even if our decisions are not at the same scale, they can be equally misguided and misappropriated. Remember people like us made billionaires, billionaires by spending our money on their company's goods and services.
@nemo-studios they got lucky building their wealth. Everyone takes risk. Right time and place. Not one billionaire started at the bottom and worked their way up. There is no such thing as a self made billionaire. They are evil because they create a financial deficit in the working class. Billionaires killed the middle class.
Breaking the "wealth defense industry" feels like a moral imperative not just to generate more tax revenue, but to establish equality before the law. In the end it's not about who's evil or not, but about a concentration of power that has the capacity to negate democracy and the rule of law if left unchecked
I don't see this ever changing. It's not unique to wealth defense, or even law. Money is power, that means lobbying governments, getting the best lawyers, paying the press to hide/promote things, etc
Shut up, "wealth defense industry" it's called accounting, the supreme court has upheld the American's ability to reduce their tax as much as possible within the law, it's not our responsibility to pay the most tax. If you care so much about not evading taxes why don't you write a check to the IRS they won't complain.
Everybody tries to reduce their own tax burden, why is that billionares are supposed to pay more when they already pay the most $ value wise. the 1% pay 40% of all IRS revenue.
I don't know why you would want to take from the wealthy to give to the government. Best things we have today are from the people you would want to take from. When has the government ever made good money making decisions? At least the wealthy are going to make my life easier and more luxurious at a price that I can afford or afford someday.
I don’t think the issue is the amount of money people have or give away but rather the the lack of access so many people have to make anywhere near that amount of money. Let alone a livable wage. Great video, thank you!
Thank you so much for that easy to digest breakdown. I kept hearing about the ultra wealthy borrowing money instead of selling their assets but didn’t quite know how it worked. Now I have a better understanding.
The “this is a representative democracy” argument is a bad one. Capitalism itself is a democracy, the majority of people voted with their money and essentially gave these billionaires the wealth they have. They can do with it what they like. You also can’t force these billionaires to sell their stock because that would be a huge infringement on financial rights. That being said, the best system to get these billionaires to pay their fair share is to implement a value added tax or a luxury tax. Tax where they spend, not simply because they hold a lot of stock in their own company.
@JC P yup, and both are the best at what they do. Democracy is the most libertarian you can get without anarchy, and capitalism is objectively the best for the economy.
If people dislike billionaires more taxes is the worst solution. The evidence is already clear. They pay very little taxes now. Increasing the tax rate won't fix that. Want to fix income disparity? Possible solutions: - simplify tax code. Everyone would benefit. Except tax companies. - make competition easier. There are more hurdles now to create a 1B company than when most Billionaires started. This makes it more likely they will stay rich and you won't be. - create incentives for behaviors we want rather than punishing people at the top. - shrink government. They spend what they don't have and drive up inflation. The use what they do have inefficiently for corrupt purposes.
I find your logic is privileged. Since the average income in the world is around $39 thousand, most Americans are very wealthy. As such we should be taxed to raise others around the world out of poverty. Read the book Factfullness and you will see how we should be ashamed of any wealth. We have running water/toilets which often is a luxury unaffordable to much of the world. Really, you should give up your home and income to help those impoverished people. It is always easier to tell others what to do with their money. Put your money to work instead helping the impoverished world.
Even among billionaire there is a disparity. There is someone who eeks out with a total net value of 1B then there is elon musk who has 10B just in liquid cash.
So what is an acceptable level ownership/wealth? Would taxing the away a large portion of the wealth actually give the lowest wealth owners more funds to expend or just give politicians more control over allocation of funds to other govenrments and discourage those who are creating the wealth to be taxed from taking risks and using their intellect and hard work for their own benefit? Isn't the possibility of becoming independently wealthy what drives most top people to get out of poverty?
Did you even watch the video ? She literally said that rich people that didn't give away more than half of their money to charities were unjust hoarders (she used the term hoarder multiple times, even !!), and even those who did give away their money had unjust influence on where THEIR OWN MONEY was spent (!!-!!!!!) Would you actually let someone get away with saying either of those things about you and your money ? Of course you wouldn't, you would immediately realize that its not these people's business how you spend your own money, and that their treatment of this topic is hopelessly biased against rich people. Yes, they then walked that back a little bit by saying there is nuance, but their basic position is we need more taxes, so our government can decide where the vast majority of the wealth of the UNITED STATES is spent. I had to check if I had somehow ended up in the alternate timeline where the Soviet Union won the cold war, and we had to implement a 94 % tax on anyone the Militsiya deemed 'too rich', and this was their propaganda video explaining why no Americans could be rich anymore. Now you may agree with the bias of the video, but you can't in good conscience say that no one was bashed in this video, because most of the video was bashing on wealth. I'm surprised that a wealth building youtube channel would take such a hard line anti-wealth position. Its kind of disappointing, as this channel came with some pretty high recommendations from other channels I trust.
@@gettingthatlove419 How much money a billion dollars is has NOTHING to do with being evil or good (the title of the video), THAT is the issue I have with the video. If your conception of good and evil is determined by how many zeroes a bank account has, then morality itself has no meaning, because its just an arbitrary amount, like flipping an odometer, and cannot be either good or bad, because at its base, its just an amount of a thing.
You guys forgot to mention that Amazon contributes to productivity and GDP indirectly by making shopping convenient and quick. That frees up people's time to do other stuff. It's the same thing investments in infrastructure seek to accomplish.
It's not.But using hundreds of thousands of employees and backing up politicians that in return have your back in front of the law, protect and strenghten your business is evil.You have to ask yourself-how did these people get there?Not by being nice or playing by the rules.All of them have a strong backing from their states and an army of yesmen or lunatics that think they are always right and that their ideas or actions should not even be questioned.
Bingo! America is essentially a plutocracy. Look at how Sinema raised money from Pharmaceutical lobbyists and dismantled lower prescription drug prices.
I wish more people understood that this wealth and power means the wealthy really control society, indirectly like you said, but we really don't like in a democracy.
The way that billionaires look as many ways as possible to avoid taxes and the government let them get away with it while the working class can't get a few pennies without getting their pay checks raped by taxes. This is sick
I don't see how most billionaires got to that point without it being off the backs of many others, many of which weren't paid enough for the work they did or other ways of screwing them over, or pushing the cost onto the planet and polluting.
2:38 this is a misleading stat. Many of those people have negative wealth. That means while they might be wealthier than the group, they are not wealthier than a subset of the group. My son who have a nickel to his name is wealthier than millions of people in the world.
And I'm betting that these statistics don't consider an education to be an asset that offsets the negative value of a student loan. So a recently graduated medical student with millions of dollars in lifetime earning ahead of them is considered to be worse off than your son. Education is usually a medical student's greatest asset and greatest liability, but only one gets measured.
Informative as always and I’d actually love to see a few episodes dedicated to diving deeper into this topic. I felt like this has opened up a Pandora’s box and I’d love to know much more than this video scratches the surface. Great food for thought!
To answer your question, no. Not at all. It's communistic otherwise. If you find yourself lacking materially, then save better or use charity (which can include family) or call for a higher social floor. The classist 16th Amendment should be repealed. Also, like you said, the affluent will use legal means to protect themselves anyway.
And the government did that on purpose. If you don't like the government promoting giving to charity, then call your legislators, but the billionaires giving to charity are doing exactly what our lawmakers want them to do.
@@khaledalromih Because you must be truly freaking idiotic to even pretend that the Giving Pledge is the only possible way to make a foundation or charity to dodge taxes, you doofus
Hearing about the "Giving Pledge" by Billionaires remind me of this quote: "NO AMOUNT OF CHARITIES IN SPENDING SUCH FORTUNES CAN COMPENSATE IN ANY WAY FOR THE MISCONDUCT IN ACQUIRING THEM."
@@austinhernandez2716 My point is why people care millionaires and billionaires exist. How does them being a millionaire or billionaire negatively affect you personally?
This is a great channel. You two have a lovely dynamic and bring a grounded sweetness to what would otherwise be a very austere and emotionally barren field of knowledge. Excellently researched, too! I’d love to see this channel make a video about Capitalism v Socialism and their pros and cons. There’s a lot of class consciousness among young people that hasn’t been seen as much in past generations, and I think you two would make a great, well researched video that could illuminate the tricky subject. Just my two cents :)
@@Danny-jl2sd and all of those services are unsustainable and bankrupting us. Saying "we already have a little socialism" is no different from saying "I may have cancer in my lungs and some of my bones, but I'm not dead yet, so what's wrong with a little cancer? Live a little!"
@@Danny-jl2sd the courts, the police, and the military is not socialism. Those are the only things that government are *supposed* to do. Everything other than three are unsustainable welfare programs that eventually lead to a monetary crisis.
@@Beekeeper8011 as somebody coming from a post-soviet country - I agree with you totally. socialism is not just a cancer, it's a really big evil that made my country and nation a lot of pain. some guys in us don't know what real poverty & starving are. These kids don't know how big this socialistic evil is.
People take so much debt in America which they cannot pay back most things are on credit card ....commercials are full of medicines which is so abnormal and you can buy guns from the market freely?? This is just crazy lifestyle
Hell yeah, we needed to do that 30 years ago too. Next time they try to pass a "Tax Reform Act", let's really pay attention to who is being helped: the poorest people or the richest people in America? Andrew Mellon started all this in 100 years ago in the Robber Baron era with his endless desire to cut the top tax bracket and opposed tax cuts for the poor as being used for the purposes of "socialistic experiments. These arguments are literally a hundred years old. Only after WWII did the middle class meaningfully expand, and then Reagan (an actor in the 1950s) became president and cut the top tax bracket from 78% to 28%.
Yep - as many have pointed out, a flat sales tax + UBI would force billionaires to ‘pay their fair share’ (others’ words, not mine). The more loopholes we add, the better situated the folks with armies of accountants and lawyers become. The current tax structure is necessary, though - if everyone knew that they’re paying over half their income in taxes, there’d be a revolt.
@@theimpulsivevulcan5346 Yes, every time you advocate for simplifying code some people from both sides of the political spectrum will devise an argument why that is poo poo logic and why you should feel bad for not leaving practicing politics to accredited mister expert PhD financial asshole. Their views will be supported by many citizen around them because "you're not an expert, why do you think you have right to comment". Your neighbours and acquaintances are partly to blame for keeping the current system the way it is.
Also, the government printed 20000 billion USD between jan 2020 and oct 2021. Obviously, it has far more cash than any billionare could ever contribute in tax. So why are our problems not gone? How about focusing on corrupt government for once, so we might learn that our greatest enemy since forever has been the government itself?
Yes. It is. Period. No discussion. It's unacceptable having a few people own more than half of the money in the world just because they were majorly born into wealthiness. Moreover, as you perfectly said in the video, at the end of the day, they are the ones who decide what happens to the world, not our politicians.
Billionaires not paying taxes is not the reason we can't fund social programs. If we applied a wealth tax of 100% to anyone worth over a billion dollars then we could fund federal and state governments for about 6 months (See below for numbers). Musk's wealth alone would fund state and federal governments for 12 days and 14 hours. With this, I'm assuming you could find buyers for all of their assets at the prices they are valued at today, down to the last share, which is unreasonable. So for 6 months you wouldn't have to pay income, FICA, or state sales tax (Local government spending or taxation wasn't in my sources). Or for one year we could boost government spending by 50%, or by 5% for each of the next 10 years. A 5% boost to government spending for 10 years feels underwhelming after confiscating all of the wealth of all of the billionaires that people are making so much noise about. Of course what would happen in reality is that the US Treasury would stop issuing Treasuries for about 6 months, because Congress might not have appropriated more spending with the billionaire tax. If you want to have a discussion about the power that billionaires have over election funding or public discourse or many other things, then we can, but underfunding the government is not a problem solved by taxing billionaires more, the government is just too big for even billionaires to make a dent. Calculations: Forbes says that US billionaires have a net worth of $4.6 trillion, as of April 2021. In 2019, before the government started spending trillions to deal with COVID, the US government spent $7.3 trillion. State governments spent an additional $2 trillion (though $600 billion of federal spending was transfers to states). So federal and state governments spent $8.7 trillion in 2019. 4.6/8.7=0.52, so half of a year of spending. If Musk has a net worth of $300 billion, then 300/8700*365=12.5 days.
When it comes to the whole poverty crisis, you can throw every bit of money in the world at it. You can just throw money until everybody’s net worth is zero. And it still will not be solved. So I don’t blame billionaires they did not steal money to get wealthy. Many of them had extraordinary ideas they worked 100 hours a week. Actually, we all should take notes and learn from billionaires. They have a lot to teach us. as far as poverty goes, there needs to be programs that impress people to work gives them jobs or job training things that they can use to enrich themselves
is borrowing money against the law? are they responsible for war disease or poverty ? i challenge You to give half your money away , To imply or suggest that money makes a person "EVIL" is Evil. almost slander with Tricky words . The innovations of wealthy active people move other people up from poverty , Carnegie Libraries is one example . look into how wealthy support charity and education
They have billions for a reason. If you don't like them to be that rich, stop using anything from big companies, you will be doing your part. Nobody is forced to buy a product or use a service from a company, still the most common way someone can be that rich is developing (or funding) a business that many millions or even billions will voluntarily pay to have access. Big companies make people's life easier or better in some subjetive way and that's why they often prefer to have their products or services (and pay for them) than not. Once someone decided to give up many aspects of his/her own life to fully focus on building such business, it's easy to point a finger and say he/she doesn't deserve it, posting that on Facebook through an Iphone while you buy a product you have found through a Google search or an TH-cam video on Amazon through a PC with Windows... Yes, what people do with their money can be good or bad, but if it's their money, it's up to them to decide what to do. You can be evil with no money or with a billion, it's really not about money.
@@malissaowen2743 a million dollars in donations from a millionaire can change someone's life forever, still that much money may not be that much for a billionaire. Still, it doesn't take a penny to take someone's life. How much a person's life is worth to you? Everything is subjective, don't try to make things simpler than they really are. Yes, money is power and the more power you have the more you can do, but if you think you have the right reasons, then you should be one of the people trying to have that power, so you can make more good than you can right now. There are people who believes that money is evil by itself, and that is exactly why they let the evil ones seek power. It's good for then, less competition. And don't come with the "power corrupts" argument, power only amplifies who you already are. Again, it's not about money.
I still think it's weird how we consider these people to actually own 300 billion dollars when in reality they just own a bunch of stock. If they sold all of that stock tomorrow it would probably go down half in price. So I guess you could say they're still a billionaire, but owning an asset that some people are willing to pay for doesn't mean they're greedy and hoarding money. That value was poof created when the business became successful, and some investors are simply willing to give them money for it now. Doesn't mean they're greedy if they choose not to sell the stock. In fact, if they don't sell it that just means they will continue to be around to make sure the company doesn't fail because they don't want the stock price to fall. Therefore, increasing the reliability of these companies.
The infrastructure for their business is not the only thing these billionaires benefit from tax payers. Their businesses also benefit from government subsidies and tax exemptions ( such as the SBIR). Paying their fair share of taxes would be the bare minimum.
Amazon's AWS is built atop of Linux and KVM (previously they used Xen) and is libre/free open source software which I am pretty sure, wasn't intended to turn Jeff Bezos into a billionaire. Linus Torvalds, is not a billionaire, why should his users be richer than he is? Similar logic could apply to Google and Facebook's CEOs, which also depend upon Linux, heavily.
Success depends on the actions or steps you take to achieve it. Show me a man without investment and I'l tell you how long it takes to go bankrupt. Investing creates a safe haven for the future. With the right investment choice that has at least a 2% minimum risk and with the advice of an expert, profits and interest are 100% guaranteed
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1-2 billion? Fine. 100-200 billion? Greed. Reminds me of Notch from Mojang. Guy sold Minecraft to Microsoft for like 2.5 billion dollars. Well deserved considering how simple yet genius that game is. I'm pretty sure he didn't step on anyone to get to that point. But for like the big ass companies? At a certain point you no longer need to get paid anything... like at that point money is just a high score for you not even a means to live comfortably and buy stuff -_-
I think the issue is not always giving taxes, but how the tax money is being handled and managed. The government is terrible with managing money and nothing frustrates me further than seeing taxpayers money go towards the military and not towards a basic universal health care and infrastructure maintenance.
This is another instance of trying to treat the symptoms and not the problem. The tax system is what's to blame and has been favoring the rich since it's inception
Blaming the tax system seems like treating the symptoms and not the problem. The capitalist class with it's wealth and influence made the tax system what it is in the first place. They're to blame for favoring themselves and profit over people's lives.
Aaand being rich and hiring people from the "wealth defense industry" to avoid paying taxes seems like a pretty clear indication that the quality of your character is garbage.
Here is my thought: Being a billionaire alone doesn't make one evil. On the other hand, billionaires who don't care about their societal impact from their decisions and only care about their wealth gains are probably not so ethical. However, the blame also falls on the goverment and society for enabling these unethical billionaries to exist. The goverment does little to control or sometimes even help out these billionaires. The society at large continue to patronize the businesses owned by the billionaries which are detrimental to society.
I dont quite agree with the society part since it's a broad term. Society is made up by many elements including individuals, corporations, non-profit, etc. "Little men" like you and I or a factory worker in India were (probably) borned into this well established system so called capitalism and we all somehow feed into the system. point is, I think corporate giants, capitalism at large, is a more specific term for what's helping the billies to be ultra greedy hence ultra rich.
@@minhng575 Yes, I agree that society is made up of elements like individuals, corporations, non-profits, etc. The thing is that societal entities' actions can also enable the existence of greedy wealthy individuals. Individuals such as consumers often patronize businesses with amoral practices. We often don't think much about the impact of our consumption habits. For instance, when most people buy something from Amazon, do they think about the warehouse workers working in substandard conditions for low wages? Do they think about the delivery drivers that are not paid much yet have to delivery packages quickly even on busy holidays? Do they care about the local businesses that would lose the business to Amazon? Most Amazon customers only see that the thing they think they want is a good deal, they want it right away, and don't want to go out of their way to get it. To be non-profit is just a legal entity to be tax-exempt since said organization claims to benefit society. For instance, PBS is nonprofit and tax payer funded. However, they still became greedy when stations sold off TV spectrum in the FCC spectrum auction to wireless phone carrier businesses. PBS TV viewers ultimately had to tune to repacked channels or try to get signal with low VHF antennas that are often big and have to be mounted outside. Low income families often do not have good internet access especially in rural areas so they can't really just go online. PBS stations on the other hand got billions of dollars from the FCC spectrum auction deal. Not all wealthy individuals are greedy. Some do deserve their wealth. The question is whether is it really justified and I don't mean from legal standpoint. The legal system is not a good justice system. Corporations often influence the legal system for their own benefit. Jeff Bezos supposedly earns many times more than the workers because he created the business and the jobs. Did he pack all those billions of packages in all his warehouses over the years? Did he personally delivery all the billions packages to his customers around the world? Of course not, his workers did. So why is Jeff Bezos able to justify his enormous compensation while the frontline workers don't get much even collectively?
Also, the government printed 20000 billion USD between jan 2020 and oct 2021. Obviously, it has far more cash than any billionare could ever contribute in tax. So why are our problems not gone? How about focusing on corrupt government for once, so we might learn that our greatest enemy since forever has been the government itself?
Billionaires don't have this money sitting in a bank account somewhere its more often than not in company stock and shares which they cannot spend anyway unless they sell the first. Most Americans or anyone in a modern country is more wealthy than that over half the poorest population of the World, this does not make them evil.
This is the most one-sided argument of any topic I have seen you do. Wealth is not a zero sum game. Wealth is created by innovative people who take risks. People do not become poor in order for others to become rich. If it was zero sum then total wealth would never go up. Trillions of dollars have been spent on the war on poverty yet it still exists. Why is that? Could it be that government is the least efficient means to distribute money? PBS is a perfect example. Taking money from taxes and producing a product that very few use. Without forced funding it would not exist.
being rich or poor isn't about deserve or not deserve. just what it. wealth is always a combination of things including hard work, risk taking, luck, etc.
"The easiest way of making money is to ensure you are hiring as few people as possible for as low as possible." Nope. The easiest way of making money is to maximize profit. There are many ways of doing this. In fact, it can often make more sense to pay people more if the good or service they are producing as a result will be more valuable. "If Jeff Bezos had never been born, there would be another person to create the same company." That person would ALSO be a bilionaire. Also , while amazon does use public resources, there is nothing to say that these resources can't also be provided by the private sector. In fact government investment is notorious low in its returns, so it is probably the case that Amazon, and many other companies "Amazon hires people by destroying small business." Ok? Those businesses were less efficient and good at what they were doing. Competition holds all businesses accountable and means that the many surviving businesses are way better. Also you know that AWS, Amazon's most profitable sector, sells almost exclusively to businesses. And they do it because their cloud computing services are cheaper and more reliable. The businesses they sell to can ALSO employ people and make others rich. In fact most businesses that disrupt and develop new technology create more wealth for others than they do for themselves. "Billionaires take out loans to avoid taxes." You talk about this like it is a bad thing when the federal government wastes tons of money. Its far better for that money to be in the hands of private citizens , especially ones that serve others, than in the hands of government officials who don't really. Wealthy people are also still paying taxes. Net taxes are exclusively paid by the wealthy and corporations themselves are still heavily taxed. "While there might be some good philantropic billionaires out there, most hoard wealth." First things first. Actually giving away money isn't easy as it requires a lot of management and due diligance. This is why Bill Gates spends his full time managing his foundation. It is in no way the case that you can just give money and have that money be guaranteed to provide a positive impact on peoples' lives. Second it is rare that wealth is just hoarded in a vault somewhere. Most is either in banks or in investments. This wealth is still accessible by the rest of the economy. It is used to fund companies that make products that serve people or can be loaned out to anyone that wants to. While Jeff Bezos didn't sign the giving pledge , he has pledged to donate 10 billion tohis own foundation to fight climate change. In addition, he just gave 100 million to the Obama foundation. Fin "People are considering wealth taxes" Considering but not implemented because it is a terrible idea. Wealth is ILLIQUID in many cases. Creating a wealth tax would mean an increased push from the government to assess private peoples' assets and that is not likely to go very well. It would also be terribly invasive and have ripple effects on the economy. Consider, if you found a bunch of expensive collectibles in your basement, would it be illegal to not declare these to the government? What if your wealth is in a tax advantged account and you have to liquidate? I don't get it. You guy help people build wealth for a LIVING. I would expect some reasonable takes and fair opinions. But this is clearly biased to be more socialist. Nowhere can you prove that billionaires make peoples' lives worst...because they don't, unless you are the kind of person that is envious. I would expect you two to be a lot more honest with the intent of your takes, instead of making this seem unbiased. I would also hope that instead of casting the blame on billionaires, you would focus back on personal finance. What billionaires do is irrelevant, they don't make people poor. If anything they make them rich. Why don't you focus on teaching people how they too can become wealthy?
Spot on! Remember the days before Amazon? The next best thing was ebay and it took a minimum of a few weeks for any package to arrive, now i can get anything i want within a 2 day delivery time window; FOR CHEAPER! Competition breeds innovation, if Apple was never in fierce competition with Samsung or Google, do you think that the iPhone, Galaxy S, or Pixel would be nearly as good as it is today? Socialists hate capitalism, but they sure do love using the benefits of capitalism on the daily.
Another part of Greed is that raking in tons of cash while paying staff and employees minimally is why so many people are struggling financially. And why poverty and homelessness is growing at an alarming rate.
Yall are the best. Always sharing the truth - never sensationalized or emotional, and never demonizing everyone. WHEN THE HECK IS TH-cam GOING TO REALIZE HOW GOOD THIS CHANNEL IS?
It's a complicated issue because of how much of Billionair fortune is tied to assets (mainly stock), rather than income. Incrwasing income tax therefor does very little to combat inequality. We need more mechanisms that, over time, redistribute the stocks held by founders/CEOs to other employees/the government.
I'm not sure how having some stocks creates inequality. Maybe the poorer guys should have some fun with stocks too, instead of spending it on whatever.
Also btw if by this time you haven't realized the government has NEVER ONCE upkept their charge of helping the poor, no matter how much taxes it collected, I don't know what reality you've been subscribing to.
Also, the government printed 20000 billion USD between jan 2020 and oct 2021. Obviously, it has far more cash than any billionare could ever contribute in tax. So why are our problems not gone? How about focusing on corrupt government for once, so we might learn that our greatest enemy since forever has been the government itself?
@@diogonunes1608 Henry George proposed a solution to wealth inequality way back in 1880. He realized that as wealth increases in society, it tends to wind up in the hand of landlords and land speculators. The solution is to shift all taxes to land value taxes. Look up Georgism for more, I can't give the idea justice in a youtube comment.
@@abarbar06 But that's not at all where the wealth is concentrated now, which is stocks and investments. That's just a specific wealth tax with a loophole the size of every other type of asset.
@@cadekachelmeier7251 People holding stocks isn't a poverty-producing problem though. On the other hand, people have to pay rent regardless of how much Elon Musk pays in taxes. By the way, the total land wealth in the US is estimated around $20 trillion, and the total US wealth is on the order of $100 trillion.
@@abarbar06 The source I saw put the other 80% of the wealth in things like stocks and bonds, so focusing on the 20% of the wealth seems like an ineffective way to address inequality. It seems like your real argument is that it would help lower housing prices in some way. I just fundamentally disagree that additional land taxes are a good tool for the job. Zoning and city planning are much better ways to lower housing prices in my opinion. Lots of cities have giant swaths of land zoned for single family housing, the most expensive and least land efficient housing option. There are lots of expensive areas where you could replace a few expensive homes with medium density housing (or mixed use developments) and get way more value out of the land, but it's just illegal. Fewer homes mean higher prices, ultimately. I'm sure there are some local landlord monopolies gouging out high rents from captive residents, but that seems more like it needs an anti trust solution rather than a tax solutions.
We tax cigarettes because we want to discourage smoking. Taxing billionaires more will discourage them working. That means fewer innovations in self driving cars, computers, and online shopping. Not to mention that the poor are also getting richer. How can we be envious of other people's money when we're not getting poorer?
Yep too bad us non billionaires are not smart enough to push for innovation. Gotta leave it to the handful of people in the world who are already ultra wealthy!
@@malissaowen2743 That's like saying non-nfl players can't play football. They can, but NFL players are in the NFL because they can play football really well. That doesn't mean that there are no good players outside of the NFL, but it does mean that the average NFL player is better at football than I am. That's what meritocracys do. Bring the best to the top
@@malissaowen2743 Okay, go ahead and take out billions in debt to start the next amazon! If we can all just do it, then go ahead and do it. Stop begging for people to give you free shit. I work hard for my money and therefore i dont give it out for free. If you love the poor so much, give all of your descrentionary income to the homeless and live off the bare minimum.
@@LG123ABC Are u crazy??? But in answer to your question - as many wealthy people there are there should be no homeless people as places to live and programs could be provided to get people into better circumstances and off the streets. I do what I can through volunteering and giving but those that really have the money should step up and help instead of being focused on status.
I don't understand a large portion of this video. Why is anyone required to donate money that is theirs? If I had a billion dollars and didn't send a cent to charity that was my choice. People think that's evil? If I had a dollar and I didn't give a cent to charity, is that also evil? Is it because of it being a certain % of your money that people think this way? If it's just because they didn't help others and nothing to do with the monetary value, then I would say by their own logic the mass majority of the world is "evil" for not donating your time to charities. Everyone is a billionaire in that sense. We are all limited on our time here. If someone spends their time making money and another on experiences, is the one who gained wealth now evil for not giving it away while those who had experiences for themselves not evil because they didn't get wealthy? I hate this entire debate because it excludes the rest of the population and includes only the very rich. Obviously I'm not apart of the very rich, but I know very well if I was told I HAD to give my money to anything at all, there's a 0% chance it is going to said thing. If I wanted to give money to a charity I would. No one has the right to tell someone what they can or can't do with what they have rightfully earned. The only exception is if it was not rightfully earned, I am not meaning that by charity because they did rightfully earn that. I mean situations such as theft and fraud. Where they should be forced to give back what was taken and more, example being actually corrupt billionaires who dodge taxes.
I took the time to read your comment and agree Even beyond charity, people immediately jump to taxation and yet fail to say the corrupt and evil decisions made by the government when they’re given that money. I love that you took the time to reflect and question the premises. For me it always begs the question, what is the alternative? What other solutions are there?
Wealth gap isn't actually a problem Cornell university breaks it down and finds out 12% of Americans reach the top 1% at some point of their lives. If anything it just means. The overall productivity/efficiency of the economy increased. Which is a great thing. To tax the 1% is like taxing steve jobs for being too good at inevmting new technologies And game theory says Steve Jobs will just leave to more business friendly areas
Whoever edited the background, you should have put a seizure waring on it. The dude behind me in line at my local coffee shop just collapsed from a grand mal.
Imo, its not that having a billion dollars or more makes u evil, its the fact that you cannot make that much money without exploiting a workforce or a system.
One thing about money hoarding, a lot of them want to keep their stock because it is how they can manage to keep power over their companies.
This is an amazing point I have never thought of before
lol remember last year when the Los Angeles Lakers applied for a 5 million dollar "small business" loan and got approved 🤣 while actual small business got denied and went bankrupt.
How many people work for the LA Lakers?
@@Scott-by9ks how many subsidies do the for-profit Lakers gets from taxpayers?
@@CRAZYBUBBA great question. But when I owned my business I got none. I'm not a proponent of incentives. I think businesses should be competing on a level playing field and that's just not possible if government is picking winners and losers. I don't think it's fair that my taxes go to help competing businesses.
They moved to texas
Being wealthy is not inherently evil in itself. What it is evil is the practices some wealthy people engage in, like tax evasion, exploitation of the working class, and, in the US specific case, legal bribing of politicians.
exactly
"exploitation of the working class" Whaddaya mean, Marx? Paying more than your competitors, thus losing all your market share to those competitors who pay less and thus offer consumers a lower price? Sounds like you think price controls are a good thing,. How has that worked when tried? Or do you mean that we, the CONSUMERS are exploiting workers by always choosing the lower price product? If so, how is that the fault of the rich?
@@Rabbit80q yes
@@Rabbit80q They don't force them to use a bottle, but they do give them very short breaks. The way to stop that is to work somewhere else, or to form a union to get longer breaks, or for YOU to stop buying from Amazon. Not introduce some 90% income tax.
finally a comment that isnt boot licking billionaires and giving a good argument. Its not evil if you made a good business, pay your workers well and pay your fair share of taxes on the finite resources that is for the whole nation. It is however evil if your paying your workers shitty wages, aggressively combating unions, mistreating them and forcing them to work without proper safety at peak covid etc etc.
The intro 😂 I love it!
I laughed so hard!!!!
Except the rocket wasn't phallic-shaped enough 🤣
Regarding the charitable billionaires. The problem remains that a small group of people is deciding where the money is going. Even if they are well-intentioned, it's entirely possible that they are using it inefficiently, not choosing goals that offer most benefit to humanity as a whole, or are even causing unintended (negative) consequences. They're not accountable, and that's a problem.
If they have hidden motives... Well, they might even be using the charities as a cover for illicit or amoral activity.
The fact is any "charitable billionaire" would not remain a billionaire for very long. If the USA capped personal wealth at $1B and redistributed all of that money to the lowest wealth individuals, the bottom third of USA wealth would be totally rid of poverty, and the least wealthy households (including debt) would receive about $50,000.
$50,000 to someone like Musk or Bezos is literally not even worth blinking an eye at, they probably have windows worth that much in their houses. But $50,000 to a poor or even average family could be life-changing forever. There's a great humanitarian argument to actually doing this.
@EnterJustice That is not inherently a problem. You assume having more people voicing their opinions is more valuable and leads to better results. The real world begs to differ on that opinion.
Take a look at the House of Representatives in Congress. More isn't always better. In fact given the average intellectual capacity of someone in the world, more is normally going to lead to worse decisions that will end up hurting everyone. Not intentionally, but out of ignorance.
Billionaires become billionaires by taking the right risks, sacrificing their lives towards building value within society and the world at large. I'm not going to entertain the edge case trust fund babies. I'm focusing on the reality of what it takes for most to reach this level of wealth.
They have every right to spend their wealth as they see fit just as you and I are allowed to. Even if our decisions are not at the same scale, they can be equally misguided and misappropriated.
Remember people like us made billionaires, billionaires by spending our money on their company's goods and services.
And that's the fault of the people contributing life-changing amounts of money?
@nemo-studios they got lucky building their wealth. Everyone takes risk. Right time and place. Not one billionaire started at the bottom and worked their way up. There is no such thing as a self made billionaire. They are evil because they create a financial deficit in the working class. Billionaires killed the middle class.
“Entire possible that they are using it inefficiently” and it is undeniable that the government uses tax revenue far more inefficiently.
Breaking the "wealth defense industry" feels like a moral imperative not just to generate more tax revenue, but to establish equality before the law. In the end it's not about who's evil or not, but about a concentration of power that has the capacity to negate democracy and the rule of law if left unchecked
I don't see this ever changing. It's not unique to wealth defense, or even law. Money is power, that means lobbying governments, getting the best lawyers, paying the press to hide/promote things, etc
You are equally allowed to start a company that is worth billions. Opportunity is equal, outcomes will vary.
Shut up, "wealth defense industry" it's called accounting, the supreme court has upheld the American's ability to reduce their tax as much as possible within the law, it's not our responsibility to pay the most tax. If you care so much about not evading taxes why don't you write a check to the IRS they won't complain.
Everybody tries to reduce their own tax burden, why is that billionares are supposed to pay more when they already pay the most $ value wise. the 1% pay 40% of all IRS revenue.
I don't know why you would want to take from the wealthy to give to the government. Best things we have today are from the people you would want to take from. When has the government ever made good money making decisions? At least the wealthy are going to make my life easier and more luxurious at a price that I can afford or afford someday.
This is such an interesting topic. Always learning something new with you guys. Thank you!
I don’t think the issue is the amount of money people have or give away but rather the the lack of access so many people have to make anywhere near that amount of money. Let alone a livable wage.
Great video, thank you!
Thank you so much for that easy to digest breakdown. I kept hearing about the ultra wealthy borrowing money instead of selling their assets but didn’t quite know how it worked. Now I have a better understanding.
Jake broe has a great video on this topic
The “this is a representative democracy” argument is a bad one. Capitalism itself is a democracy, the majority of people voted with their money and essentially gave these billionaires the wealth they have. They can do with it what they like. You also can’t force these billionaires to sell their stock because that would be a huge infringement on financial rights. That being said, the best system to get these billionaires to pay their fair share is to implement a value added tax or a luxury tax. Tax where they spend, not simply because they hold a lot of stock in their own company.
@JC P yup, and both are the best at what they do. Democracy is the most libertarian you can get without anarchy, and capitalism is objectively the best for the economy.
If people dislike billionaires more taxes is the worst solution. The evidence is already clear. They pay very little taxes now. Increasing the tax rate won't fix that. Want to fix income disparity?
Possible solutions:
- simplify tax code. Everyone would benefit. Except tax companies.
- make competition easier. There are more hurdles now to create a 1B company than when most Billionaires started. This makes it more likely they will stay rich and you won't be.
- create incentives for behaviors we want rather than punishing people at the top.
- shrink government. They spend what they don't have and drive up inflation. The use what they do have inefficiently for corrupt purposes.
I find your logic is privileged. Since the average income in the world is around $39 thousand, most Americans are very wealthy. As such we should be taxed to raise others around the world out of poverty. Read the book Factfullness and you will see how we should be ashamed of any wealth. We have running water/toilets which often is a luxury unaffordable to much of the world. Really, you should give up your home and income to help those impoverished people. It is always easier to tell others what to do with their money. Put your money to work instead helping the impoverished world.
I think most billionaires are evil and one day we will look back on them in a very negative way.
0:22 I saw it coming light-years away but that was so hilarious. 100% like I'd pictured it.
That opening was a little TOO real. 😂
Even among billionaire there is a disparity. There is someone who eeks out with a total net value of 1B then there is elon musk who has 10B just in liquid cash.
The first time I heard about it being immoral to be a billionaire was on a post about someone buying a house as a gift for an employee.
it hurt to see them walk away from a 1000 dollars
You have to make over $35/hour for it to be a waste of time to pick up a penny. $1000 is pretty impressive.
I knowwwww. It hurts. 😩
So what is an acceptable level ownership/wealth? Would taxing the away a large portion of the wealth actually give the lowest wealth owners more funds to expend or just give politicians more control over allocation of funds to other govenrments and discourage those who are creating the wealth to be taxed from taking risks and using their intellect and hard work for their own benefit? Isn't the possibility of becoming independently wealthy what drives most top people to get out of poverty?
I really appreciate how tactfully this topic was covered and explained without bashing anyone. Well done Two Cents! 😊
Did you even watch the video ? She literally said that rich people that didn't give away more than half of their money to charities were unjust hoarders (she used the term hoarder multiple times, even !!), and even those who did give away their money had unjust influence on where THEIR OWN MONEY was spent (!!-!!!!!) Would you actually let someone get away with saying either of those things about you and your money ? Of course you wouldn't, you would immediately realize that its not these people's business how you spend your own money, and that their treatment of this topic is hopelessly biased against rich people. Yes, they then walked that back a little bit by saying there is nuance, but their basic position is we need more taxes, so our government can decide where the vast majority of the wealth of the UNITED STATES is spent. I had to check if I had somehow ended up in the alternate timeline where the Soviet Union won the cold war, and we had to implement a 94 % tax on anyone the Militsiya deemed 'too rich', and this was their propaganda video explaining why no Americans could be rich anymore. Now you may agree with the bias of the video, but you can't in good conscience say that no one was bashed in this video, because most of the video was bashing on wealth. I'm surprised that a wealth building youtube channel would take such a hard line anti-wealth position. Its kind of disappointing, as this channel came with some pretty high recommendations from other channels I trust.
They are definitely bashing capitalist s and now I love two cents even more! 😝
@@sprinkle61 you’ve completely missed the point. And I think you aren’t truly grasping what a billionaire is and much money a billion dollars is.😊
@@gettingthatlove419 How much money a billion dollars is has NOTHING to do with being evil or good (the title of the video), THAT is the issue I have with the video. If your conception of good and evil is determined by how many zeroes a bank account has, then morality itself has no meaning, because its just an arbitrary amount, like flipping an odometer, and cannot be either good or bad, because at its base, its just an amount of a thing.
@@sprinkle61mad because billionaires are the most evil history alive lol
You can tax 99% all the billionaires and that money would end up on the government hands..and wouldn't make any difference to poor people.
You guys forgot to mention that Amazon contributes to productivity and GDP indirectly by making shopping convenient and quick. That frees up people's time to do other stuff. It's the same thing investments in infrastructure seek to accomplish.
It's not.But using hundreds of thousands of employees and backing up politicians that in return have your back in front of the law, protect and strenghten your business is evil.You have to ask yourself-how did these people get there?Not by being nice or playing by the rules.All of them have a strong backing from their states and an army of yesmen or lunatics that think they are always right and that their ideas or actions should not even be questioned.
Bingo! America is essentially a plutocracy. Look at how Sinema raised money from Pharmaceutical lobbyists and dismantled lower prescription drug prices.
I wish more people understood that this wealth and power means the wealthy really control society, indirectly like you said, but we really don't like in a democracy.
@Aaron Elisha Ong Always has been
The way that billionaires look as many ways as possible to avoid taxes and the government let them get away with it while the working class can't get a few pennies without getting their pay checks raped by taxes. This is sick
And inflation, that’s the real kicker
amazon cant afford to pay the workerss enough bro if you read finnecil books you would know what i am talking about
shareholders cut more out of the workers' paychecks than the tax man does
@@klachingmacgaming8400 then they should change if they cannot afford with all the money it is worth.
@@klachingmacgaming8400do you buy all your financial books from Amazon? Lol
I just would like to say you guys are my favorite Chanel by far
I don't see how most billionaires got to that point without it being off the backs of many others, many of which weren't paid enough for the work they did or other ways of screwing them over, or pushing the cost onto the planet and polluting.
This is where I stand too
Companies should offer partial ownership through stock options. That way, when the company does well, the employees do well.
2:38 this is a misleading stat. Many of those people have negative wealth. That means while they might be wealthier than the group, they are not wealthier than a subset of the group. My son who have a nickel to his name is wealthier than millions of people in the world.
And I'm betting that these statistics don't consider an education to be an asset that offsets the negative value of a student loan. So a recently graduated medical student with millions of dollars in lifetime earning ahead of them is considered to be worse off than your son. Education is usually a medical student's greatest asset and greatest liability, but only one gets measured.
Good point
Informative as always and I’d actually love to see a few episodes dedicated to diving deeper into this topic. I felt like this has opened up a Pandora’s box and I’d love to know much more than this video scratches the surface. Great food for thought!
To answer your question, no. Not at all. It's communistic otherwise.
If you find yourself lacking materially, then save better or use charity (which can include family) or call for a higher social floor.
The classist 16th Amendment should be repealed. Also, like you said, the affluent will use legal means to protect themselves anyway.
Donating to charity is just another way to dodge taxes.
Then why did only 10% of billionaires sign the giving pledge instead of 100%?
@@khaledalromih because there are better ways of dodging tax if you don’t care about looking charitable?
And the government did that on purpose. If you don't like the government promoting giving to charity, then call your legislators, but the billionaires giving to charity are doing exactly what our lawmakers want them to do.
Well if you're donating to charity, you still lose money, but you look better doing it than if you were just giving that money to the government
@@khaledalromih
Because you must be truly freaking idiotic to even pretend that the Giving Pledge is the only possible way to make a foundation or charity to dodge taxes, you doofus
Hearing about the "Giving Pledge" by Billionaires remind me of this quote:
"NO AMOUNT OF CHARITIES IN SPENDING SUCH FORTUNES CAN COMPENSATE IN ANY WAY FOR THE MISCONDUCT IN ACQUIRING THEM."
Last I checked, no one is required buy from Amazon. No one is required to buy a Tesla either, etc.
Your point? That's like saying if you don't like slavery then don't buy from a white man owning slaves. Just buy from farmers in the north instead. 🙄
@@austinhernandez2716 My point is why people care millionaires and billionaires exist. How does them being a millionaire or billionaire negatively affect you personally?
@@huskiefan06
I think it's the way a lot of people would vote to send "sub-humans" to death camps.
From the title I thought you would have a different approach, but I liked the video
this was a really great episode, thank you!
Looking forward to "Is It Evil To Tax?" and "Are Politicians Good At Spending Other People's Money?"
They would definitely be better at it then the ultra rich that don't spend it at all.
I wish they would tell both sides of the argument.
Unfortunately, this channel gets increasingly biased by the day. Wouldn't be surprised if their next video is just straight up political.
Also you know they already made like 4 videos on taxes.
@@ethanschaefer8327 Is that a "definite"? Think. Carefully. Ethan.
OK. Best intro for any episode on your channel yet. :)
Pretty horrifying that our state-owned media produces videos like this.
This is a great channel. You two have a lovely dynamic and bring a grounded sweetness to what would otherwise be a very austere and emotionally barren field of knowledge. Excellently researched, too!
I’d love to see this channel make a video about Capitalism v Socialism and their pros and cons. There’s a lot of class consciousness among young people that hasn’t been seen as much in past generations, and I think you two would make a great, well researched video that could illuminate the tricky subject. Just my two cents :)
Because PBS bought and paid for them they wouldn't do it. If they did they would favor socialism.
@@Danny-jl2sd and all of those services are unsustainable and bankrupting us. Saying "we already have a little socialism" is no different from saying "I may have cancer in my lungs and some of my bones, but I'm not dead yet, so what's wrong with a little cancer? Live a little!"
@@Danny-jl2sd the courts, the police, and the military is not socialism. Those are the only things that government are *supposed* to do. Everything other than three are unsustainable welfare programs that eventually lead to a monetary crisis.
@@Beekeeper8011 as somebody coming from a post-soviet country - I agree with you totally. socialism is not just a cancer, it's a really big evil that made my country and nation a lot of pain. some guys in us don't know what real poverty & starving are. These kids don't know how big this socialistic evil is.
@@bogdanbliznuk7355 lol ok bot
wow billionares keep borrowing money seems like they should consider making a budget
please do make this series. I am so tired of hearing how [relatively new company] is now suddenly evil because they just crossed the big 1B threshold
People take so much debt in America which they cannot pay back most things are on credit card ....commercials are full of medicines which is so abnormal and you can buy guns from the market freely?? This is just crazy lifestyle
Simplifying the tax code would help.
Hell yeah, we needed to do that 30 years ago too. Next time they try to pass a "Tax Reform Act", let's really pay attention to who is being helped: the poorest people or the richest people in America?
Andrew Mellon started all this in 100 years ago in the Robber Baron era with his endless desire to cut the top tax bracket and opposed tax cuts for the poor as being used for the purposes of "socialistic experiments. These arguments are literally a hundred years old.
Only after WWII did the middle class meaningfully expand, and then Reagan (an actor in the 1950s) became president and cut the top tax bracket from 78% to 28%.
Yep - as many have pointed out, a flat sales tax + UBI would force billionaires to ‘pay their fair share’ (others’ words, not mine). The more loopholes we add, the better situated the folks with armies of accountants and lawyers become.
The current tax structure is necessary, though - if everyone knew that they’re paying over half their income in taxes, there’d be a revolt.
@@theimpulsivevulcan5346 Yes, every time you advocate for simplifying code some people from both sides of the political spectrum will devise an argument why that is poo poo logic and why you should feel bad for not leaving practicing politics to accredited mister expert PhD financial asshole.
Their views will be supported by many citizen around them because "you're not an expert, why do you think you have right to comment".
Your neighbours and acquaintances are partly to blame for keeping the current system the way it is.
Also, the government printed 20000 billion USD between jan 2020 and oct 2021. Obviously, it has far more cash than any billionare could ever contribute in tax. So why are our problems not gone? How about focusing on corrupt government for once, so we might learn that our greatest enemy since forever has been the government itself?
Yes. It is. Period. No discussion. It's unacceptable having a few people own more than half of the money in the world just because they were majorly born into wealthiness. Moreover, as you perfectly said in the video, at the end of the day, they are the ones who decide what happens to the world, not our politicians.
This channel is owned by pbs so it's time to unsubscribe!!!! It's just propaganda now onwards!
Merry Christmas 🎄 The videos are great
Billionaires not paying taxes is not the reason we can't fund social programs. If we applied a wealth tax of 100% to anyone worth over a billion dollars then we could fund federal and state governments for about 6 months (See below for numbers). Musk's wealth alone would fund state and federal governments for 12 days and 14 hours. With this, I'm assuming you could find buyers for all of their assets at the prices they are valued at today, down to the last share, which is unreasonable. So for 6 months you wouldn't have to pay income, FICA, or state sales tax (Local government spending or taxation wasn't in my sources). Or for one year we could boost government spending by 50%, or by 5% for each of the next 10 years. A 5% boost to government spending for 10 years feels underwhelming after confiscating all of the wealth of all of the billionaires that people are making so much noise about.
Of course what would happen in reality is that the US Treasury would stop issuing Treasuries for about 6 months, because Congress might not have appropriated more spending with the billionaire tax.
If you want to have a discussion about the power that billionaires have over election funding or public discourse or many other things, then we can, but underfunding the government is not a problem solved by taxing billionaires more, the government is just too big for even billionaires to make a dent.
Calculations:
Forbes says that US billionaires have a net worth of $4.6 trillion, as of April 2021. In 2019, before the government started spending trillions to deal with COVID, the US government spent $7.3 trillion. State governments spent an additional $2 trillion (though $600 billion of federal spending was transfers to states). So federal and state governments spent $8.7 trillion in 2019. 4.6/8.7=0.52, so half of a year of spending.
If Musk has a net worth of $300 billion, then 300/8700*365=12.5 days.
When it comes to the whole poverty crisis, you can throw every bit of money in the world at it. You can just throw money until everybody’s net worth is zero. And it still will not be solved. So I don’t blame billionaires they did not steal money to get wealthy. Many of them had extraordinary ideas they worked 100 hours a week. Actually, we all should take notes and learn from billionaires. They have a lot to teach us. as far as poverty goes, there needs to be programs that impress people to work gives them jobs or job training things that they can use to enrich themselves
is borrowing money against the law? are they responsible for war disease or poverty ?
i challenge You to give half your money away ,
To imply or suggest that money makes a person "EVIL" is Evil. almost slander with Tricky words .
The innovations of wealthy active people move other people up from poverty ,
Carnegie Libraries is one example . look into how wealthy support charity and education
Exactly. By their argument, no one should buy nice things while poverty exists, and give any money they don't need away.
Thanks for the info comarades. 😝
It doesn't hurt to be rich, but remember, you will not bring it with you when you are no longer here. Enjoy life with the ones you love.
I vote to your youtube channel. we need more financial and economics education vedios. I learnt lot of things from your channel.❤️
They have billions for a reason. If you don't like them to be that rich, stop using anything from big companies, you will be doing your part. Nobody is forced to buy a product or use a service from a company, still the most common way someone can be that rich is developing (or funding) a business that many millions or even billions will voluntarily pay to have access. Big companies make people's life easier or better in some subjetive way and that's why they often prefer to have their products or services (and pay for them) than not.
Once someone decided to give up many aspects of his/her own life to fully focus on building such business, it's easy to point a finger and say he/she doesn't deserve it, posting that on Facebook through an Iphone while you buy a product you have found through a Google search or an TH-cam video on Amazon through a PC with Windows...
Yes, what people do with their money can be good or bad, but if it's their money, it's up to them to decide what to do. You can be evil with no money or with a billion, it's really not about money.
Money drives decision making and how much impact an "evil" person can make. So it is about money.
@@malissaowen2743 a million dollars in donations from a millionaire can change someone's life forever, still that much money may not be that much for a billionaire. Still, it doesn't take a penny to take someone's life. How much a person's life is worth to you? Everything is subjective, don't try to make things simpler than they really are.
Yes, money is power and the more power you have the more you can do, but if you think you have the right reasons, then you should be one of the people trying to have that power, so you can make more good than you can right now. There are people who believes that money is evil by itself, and that is exactly why they let the evil ones seek power. It's good for then, less competition.
And don't come with the "power corrupts" argument, power only amplifies who you already are. Again, it's not about money.
At first I was convinced the picture in the frame over Philip's shoulder in the intro was of Ryan Gosling and Laura San Giacomo
It wouldn't be evil for me to be one. Just for everyone else.
A large majority of people think they're a better than the average driver.
I still think it's weird how we consider these people to actually own 300 billion dollars when in reality they just own a bunch of stock. If they sold all of that stock tomorrow it would probably go down half in price. So I guess you could say they're still a billionaire, but owning an asset that some people are willing to pay for doesn't mean they're greedy and hoarding money. That value was poof created when the business became successful, and some investors are simply willing to give them money for it now. Doesn't mean they're greedy if they choose not to sell the stock. In fact, if they don't sell it that just means they will continue to be around to make sure the company doesn't fail because they don't want the stock price to fall. Therefore, increasing the reliability of these companies.
The infrastructure for their business is not the only thing these billionaires benefit from tax payers. Their businesses also benefit from government subsidies and tax exemptions ( such as the SBIR). Paying their fair share of taxes would be the bare minimum.
Amazon's AWS is built atop of Linux and KVM (previously they used Xen) and is libre/free open source software which I am pretty sure, wasn't intended to turn Jeff Bezos into a billionaire. Linus Torvalds, is not a billionaire, why should his users be richer than he is?
Similar logic could apply to Google and Facebook's CEOs, which also depend upon Linux, heavily.
the top 1% already fund 40% of IRS though... do you want them to fund 95% of IRS?
IDK who's the evil one here if you do.
how much do you pay in taxes?
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I thought l'm the only one she has helped walk through the fears and falls of Bitcoin
trading.
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1-2 billion? Fine. 100-200 billion? Greed.
Reminds me of Notch from Mojang. Guy sold Minecraft to Microsoft for like 2.5 billion dollars. Well deserved considering how simple yet genius that game is. I'm pretty sure he didn't step on anyone to get to that point. But for like the big ass companies? At a certain point you no longer need to get paid anything... like at that point money is just a high score for you not even a means to live comfortably and buy stuff -_-
I think the issue is not always giving taxes, but how the tax money is being handled and managed. The government is terrible with managing money and nothing frustrates me further than seeing taxpayers money go towards the military and not towards a basic universal health care and infrastructure maintenance.
This is another instance of trying to treat the symptoms and not the problem.
The tax system is what's to blame and has been favoring the rich since it's inception
Oh gee, is that why I pay 50% of my income in taxes and my lazy brother in law pays zero?
Blaming the tax system seems like treating the symptoms and not the problem. The capitalist class with it's wealth and influence made the tax system what it is in the first place. They're to blame for favoring themselves and profit over people's lives.
yea..the US Federal Govt has a great track record of taking money from people and distributing it correctly
The problem is not the the quantity of one’s wealth, but quality of one’s character.
Aaand being rich and hiring people from the "wealth defense industry" to avoid paying taxes seems like a pretty clear indication that the quality of your character is garbage.
@@pluspiping doesn't hiring people from wealth defense industry also creates jobs?
@@zindhuzanjo8813 it's why you can't measure someone's character simply by how many jobs they "create"
Here is my thought:
Being a billionaire alone doesn't make one evil. On the other hand, billionaires who don't care about their societal impact from their decisions and only care about their wealth gains are probably not so ethical. However, the blame also falls on the goverment and society for enabling these unethical billionaries to exist. The goverment does little to control or sometimes even help out these billionaires. The society at large continue to patronize the businesses owned by the billionaries which are detrimental to society.
I dont quite agree with the society part since it's a broad term. Society is made up by many elements including individuals, corporations, non-profit, etc. "Little men" like you and I or a factory worker in India were (probably) borned into this well established system so called capitalism and we all somehow feed into the system. point is, I think corporate giants, capitalism at large, is a more specific term for what's helping the billies to be ultra greedy hence ultra rich.
@@minhng575 Yes, I agree that society is made up of elements like individuals, corporations, non-profits, etc. The thing is that societal entities' actions can also enable the existence of greedy wealthy individuals.
Individuals such as consumers often patronize businesses with amoral practices. We often don't think much about the impact of our consumption habits. For instance, when most people buy something from Amazon, do they think about the warehouse workers working in substandard conditions for low wages? Do they think about the delivery drivers that are not paid much yet have to delivery packages quickly even on busy holidays? Do they care about the local businesses that would lose the business to Amazon? Most Amazon customers only see that the thing they think they want is a good deal, they want it right away, and don't want to go out of their way to get it.
To be non-profit is just a legal entity to be tax-exempt since said organization claims to benefit society. For instance, PBS is nonprofit and tax payer funded. However, they still became greedy when stations sold off TV spectrum in the FCC spectrum auction to wireless phone carrier businesses. PBS TV viewers ultimately had to tune to repacked channels or try to get signal with low VHF antennas that are often big and have to be mounted outside. Low income families often do not have good internet access especially in rural areas so they can't really just go online. PBS stations on the other hand got billions of dollars from the FCC spectrum auction deal.
Not all wealthy individuals are greedy. Some do deserve their wealth. The question is whether is it really justified and I don't mean from legal standpoint. The legal system is not a good justice system. Corporations often influence the legal system for their own benefit. Jeff Bezos supposedly earns many times more than the workers because he created the business and the jobs. Did he pack all those billions of packages in all his warehouses over the years? Did he personally delivery all the billions packages to his customers around the world? Of course not, his workers did. So why is Jeff Bezos able to justify his enormous compensation while the frontline workers don't get much even collectively?
Also, the government printed 20000 billion USD between jan 2020 and oct 2021. Obviously, it has far more cash than any billionare could ever contribute in tax. So why are our problems not gone? How about focusing on corrupt government for once, so we might learn that our greatest enemy since forever has been the government itself?
Billionaires do not have to give ANY money to poor people.
It is if you aren't the billionaire. If I'm the billionaire, its not evil at all
Its the other way around. The system support nar, cis, sism.
Billionaires don't have this money sitting in a bank account somewhere its more often than not in company stock and shares which they cannot spend anyway unless they sell the first.
Most Americans or anyone in a modern country is more wealthy than that over half the poorest population of the World, this does not make them evil.
This is the most one-sided argument of any topic I have seen you do. Wealth is not a zero sum game. Wealth is created by innovative people who take risks. People do not become poor in order for others to become rich. If it was zero sum then total wealth would never go up. Trillions of dollars have been spent on the war on poverty yet it still exists. Why is that? Could it be that government is the least efficient means to distribute money? PBS is a perfect example. Taking money from taxes and producing a product that very few use. Without forced funding it would not exist.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who isn't a blind sheep. lol
Thanks for amazing content ❤
It's evil if "some other person" has it, not you!😂
being rich or poor isn't about deserve or not deserve. just what it. wealth is always a combination of things including hard work, risk taking, luck, etc.
Online shopping is not convenient. I like going out and shop in places full of people
The exact reason I don't like shopping in a store.
Loved the intro! I love your videos.
Honestly, a good start to fix the wealth gap would be to force billionaires to actually pay people fairly for their work
You can force people to pay you fairly.
If dont want to work leave.
You are paid what you negotiate.
If they didn't create the jobs
you wont have one.
@@uromvictoryou mean there's jobs that pay very decent wages if you're worth enough to earn them? Makes too much sense, not possible.
I GASPED at the low-interest loan part!! I thought I knew a lot about this but hadn’t heard that!
"The easiest way of making money is to ensure you are hiring as few people as possible for as low as possible."
Nope. The easiest way of making money is to maximize profit. There are many ways of doing this. In fact, it can often make more sense to pay people more if the good or service they are producing as a result will be more valuable.
"If Jeff Bezos had never been born, there would be another person to create the same company."
That person would ALSO be a bilionaire.
Also , while amazon does use public resources, there is nothing to say that these resources can't also be provided by the private sector. In fact government investment is notorious low in its returns, so it is probably the case that Amazon, and many other companies
"Amazon hires people by destroying small business."
Ok? Those businesses were less efficient and good at what they were doing. Competition holds all businesses accountable and means that the many surviving businesses are way better.
Also you know that AWS, Amazon's most profitable sector, sells almost exclusively to businesses. And they do it because their cloud computing services are cheaper and more reliable. The businesses they sell to can ALSO employ people and make others rich. In fact most businesses that disrupt and develop new technology create more wealth for others than they do for themselves.
"Billionaires take out loans to avoid taxes."
You talk about this like it is a bad thing when the federal government wastes tons of money. Its far better for that money to be in the hands of private citizens , especially ones that serve others, than in the hands of government officials who don't really. Wealthy people are also still paying taxes. Net taxes are exclusively paid by the wealthy and corporations themselves are still heavily taxed.
"While there might be some good philantropic billionaires out there, most hoard wealth."
First things first. Actually giving away money isn't easy as it requires a lot of management and due diligance. This is why Bill Gates spends his full time managing his foundation. It is in no way the case that you can just give money and have that money be guaranteed to provide a positive impact on peoples' lives.
Second it is rare that wealth is just hoarded in a vault somewhere. Most is either in banks or in investments. This wealth is still accessible by the rest of the economy. It is used to fund companies that make products that serve people or can be loaned out to anyone that wants to.
While Jeff Bezos didn't sign the giving pledge , he has pledged to donate 10 billion tohis own foundation to fight climate change. In addition, he just gave 100 million to the Obama foundation. Fin
"People are considering wealth taxes"
Considering but not implemented because it is a terrible idea. Wealth is ILLIQUID in many cases. Creating a wealth tax would mean an increased push from the government to assess private peoples' assets and that is not likely to go very well. It would also be terribly invasive and have ripple effects on the economy. Consider, if you found a bunch of expensive collectibles in your basement, would it be illegal to not declare these to the government? What if your wealth is in a tax advantged account and you have to liquidate?
I don't get it. You guy help people build wealth for a LIVING. I would expect some reasonable takes and fair opinions. But this is clearly biased to be more socialist. Nowhere can you prove that billionaires make peoples' lives worst...because they don't, unless you are the kind of person that is envious. I would expect you two to be a lot more honest with the intent of your takes, instead of making this seem unbiased. I would also hope that instead of casting the blame on billionaires, you would focus back on personal finance. What billionaires do is irrelevant, they don't make people poor. If anything they make them rich. Why don't you focus on teaching people how they too can become wealthy?
Spot on! Remember the days before Amazon? The next best thing was ebay and it took a minimum of a few weeks for any package to arrive, now i can get anything i want within a 2 day delivery time window; FOR CHEAPER!
Competition breeds innovation, if Apple was never in fierce competition with Samsung or Google, do you think that the iPhone, Galaxy S, or Pixel would be nearly as good as it is today?
Socialists hate capitalism, but they sure do love using the benefits of capitalism on the daily.
With inflation we all can be billionaires in coming decades.
If I won 2 BILLION DOLLAR jack pot I would get a stone cabin log cabin and a stone cabin with playsation 5 in it having a pizza party every weekend
Another part of Greed is that raking in tons of cash while paying staff and employees minimally is why so many people are struggling financially. And why poverty and homelessness is growing at an alarming rate.
Change the title of the video to "It is evil to be a billionaire". You haven't given opposing arguments as mentioned initially in the video.
Can you guys make a video on how taxes work on investments?
Yall are the best. Always sharing the truth - never sensationalized or emotional, and never demonizing everyone. WHEN THE HECK IS TH-cam GOING TO REALIZE HOW GOOD THIS CHANNEL IS?
owner of youtube is a billionaire so never
Real talk is there a typo in the title or am I reading it wrong??
It's a complicated issue because of how much of Billionair fortune is tied to assets (mainly stock), rather than income. Incrwasing income tax therefor does very little to combat inequality. We need more mechanisms that, over time, redistribute the stocks held by founders/CEOs to other employees/the government.
I'm not sure how having some stocks creates inequality. Maybe the poorer guys should have some fun with stocks too, instead of spending it on whatever.
Also btw if by this time you haven't realized the government has NEVER ONCE upkept their charge of helping the poor, no matter how much taxes it collected, I don't know what reality you've been subscribing to.
Also, the government printed 20000 billion USD between jan 2020 and oct 2021. Obviously, it has far more cash than any billionare could ever contribute in tax. So why are our problems not gone? How about focusing on corrupt government for once, so we might learn that our greatest enemy since forever has been the government itself?
hi,
What programs do you use to make your videos?
We cannot hold people accountable for their private money. Plain and simple. As long as they didn’t break the law in making it.
If they added so much to society there would be no more poverty.
You should do a video on flat tax. Seems like that would fix a lot of issues brought up in this video.
th-cam.com/video/dGnFcmHH7t4/w-d-xo.html
It doesn't matter what your tax system is if tax loopholes still exist
@@TheThundercow flat tax would specifically remove all loop holes. Everyone pays whatever that tax rate is 10%, 15% etc.
My favorite PBS studio ytb channel? Of course Two Cents 🤟
LAND VALUE TAX. Please talk about Henry George. I'll just keep throwing these comments into the void until someone brings it up
What's that?
@@diogonunes1608 Henry George proposed a solution to wealth inequality way back in 1880. He realized that as wealth increases in society, it tends to wind up in the hand of landlords and land speculators. The solution is to shift all taxes to land value taxes. Look up Georgism for more, I can't give the idea justice in a youtube comment.
@@abarbar06 But that's not at all where the wealth is concentrated now, which is stocks and investments. That's just a specific wealth tax with a loophole the size of every other type of asset.
@@cadekachelmeier7251 People holding stocks isn't a poverty-producing problem though. On the other hand, people have to pay rent regardless of how much Elon Musk pays in taxes.
By the way, the total land wealth in the US is estimated around $20 trillion, and the total US wealth is on the order of $100 trillion.
@@abarbar06 The source I saw put the other 80% of the wealth in things like stocks and bonds, so focusing on the 20% of the wealth seems like an ineffective way to address inequality. It seems like your real argument is that it would help lower housing prices in some way. I just fundamentally disagree that additional land taxes are a good tool for the job. Zoning and city planning are much better ways to lower housing prices in my opinion. Lots of cities have giant swaths of land zoned for single family housing, the most expensive and least land efficient housing option. There are lots of expensive areas where you could replace a few expensive homes with medium density housing (or mixed use developments) and get way more value out of the land, but it's just illegal. Fewer homes mean higher prices, ultimately.
I'm sure there are some local landlord monopolies gouging out high rents from captive residents, but that seems more like it needs an anti trust solution rather than a tax solutions.
I would rather be rich or upper middle class than poor! I hate being poor!
We tax cigarettes because we want to discourage smoking. Taxing billionaires more will discourage them working. That means fewer innovations in self driving cars, computers, and online shopping. Not to mention that the poor are also getting richer. How can we be envious of other people's money when we're not getting poorer?
Yep too bad us non billionaires are not smart enough to push for innovation. Gotta leave it to the handful of people in the world who are already ultra wealthy!
@@malissaowen2743 That's like saying non-nfl players can't play football. They can, but NFL players are in the NFL because they can play football really well. That doesn't mean that there are no good players outside of the NFL, but it does mean that the average NFL player is better at football than I am. That's what meritocracys do. Bring the best to the top
@@malissaowen2743 Okay, go ahead and take out billions in debt to start the next amazon! If we can all just do it, then go ahead and do it. Stop begging for people to give you free shit.
I work hard for my money and therefore i dont give it out for free. If you love the poor so much, give all of your descrentionary income to the homeless and live off the bare minimum.
There should be no homeless.
Then there should be overpopulation destroying this planet and reducing biodiversity
Which one you want? A world where people destroy the planet or a world with less people through population control for the benefit of this planet
Are you suggesting that we hunt them down?
@@LG123ABC Are u crazy??? But in answer to your question - as many wealthy people there are there should be no homeless people as places to live and programs could be provided to get people into better circumstances and off the streets. I do what I can through volunteering and giving but those that really have the money should step up and help instead of being focused on status.
Thank you for this video!! You guys are so awesome. I love these easy to understand videos that are so so great. Thank youuuu!!!!!
Love you guys!
I don't understand a large portion of this video. Why is anyone required to donate money that is theirs? If I had a billion dollars and didn't send a cent to charity that was my choice. People think that's evil? If I had a dollar and I didn't give a cent to charity, is that also evil? Is it because of it being a certain % of your money that people think this way? If it's just because they didn't help others and nothing to do with the monetary value, then I would say by their own logic the mass majority of the world is "evil" for not donating your time to charities. Everyone is a billionaire in that sense. We are all limited on our time here. If someone spends their time making money and another on experiences, is the one who gained wealth now evil for not giving it away while those who had experiences for themselves not evil because they didn't get wealthy? I hate this entire debate because it excludes the rest of the population and includes only the very rich. Obviously I'm not apart of the very rich, but I know very well if I was told I HAD to give my money to anything at all, there's a 0% chance it is going to said thing. If I wanted to give money to a charity I would. No one has the right to tell someone what they can or can't do with what they have rightfully earned. The only exception is if it was not rightfully earned, I am not meaning that by charity because they did rightfully earn that. I mean situations such as theft and fraud. Where they should be forced to give back what was taken and more, example being actually corrupt billionaires who dodge taxes.
I took the time to read your comment and agree
Even beyond charity, people immediately jump to taxation and yet fail to say the corrupt and evil decisions made by the government when they’re given that money.
I love that you took the time to reflect and question the premises. For me it always begs the question, what is the alternative? What other solutions are there?
Wealth gap isn't actually a problem
Cornell university breaks it down and finds out 12% of Americans reach the top 1% at some point of their lives.
If anything it just means. The overall productivity/efficiency of the economy increased.
Which is a great thing.
To tax the 1% is like taxing steve jobs for being too good at inevmting new technologies
And game theory says Steve Jobs will just leave to more business friendly areas
The money isn't evil, it's what you do with it. We can envy them, or innovate and invest like them.
That's a convenient theory.
Whoever edited the background, you should have put a seizure waring on it. The dude behind me in line at my local coffee shop just collapsed from a grand mal.
8:07 You don't have to be a billionaire to hoard money. I'm nowhere near billionaire status but I hoard money like crazy.
Uhh..Why is Ryan Gosling here?? 😂😂
9:54