America's billionaires have had a great year from a financial standpoint. The top 20 people on Forbes' 2023 richest list have added $310 billion to their fortunes. Together, they have a combined wealth of $1.9 trillion, a 30% increase from a year ago. To give a sense of how significant their growth is, these 20 people now hold 40% of the total wealth of the entire Forbes 400 list. Among the top 20, Nvidia Corp. CEO Jensen Huang stands out. His company, which has made big strides in artificial in
  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
    331·
    1 year ago

    That makes me feel literally ill. There’s nothing that can be done about it either. If enough heat gets put on them in one country, they’ll just move to another one and live just as luxuriously.

    • Dmian@lemmy.world
      33·
      1 year ago

      These are, probably, the most powerful people in history. Their reach is global. And governments have no way of dealing with them. They can manipulate any economy to their advantage. And their greed is unlimited. This is the true cancer to the system, and the reason why capitalism isn’t working anymore. Their mere existence is a threat to humanity as a whole. It’s both sad and terrifying.

    • CoderKat@lemm.eeEnglish
      8·
      1 year ago

      We absolutely could do things if society as a whole agreed to. Billionaires only exist because we let them exist. The only thing stopping us from taxing all money over a certain amount is us.

      Unfortunately, I have little faith in our ability to convince people that we should massively step up our taxation. We can’t even get billionaires to pay the percentage of income tax that they’re theoretically supposed to pay. How are we supposed to convince enough people to go above and beyond?

      A huge number of people somehow have the idea that billionaires deserve this money. Or that just because their wealth isn’t cash means we can’t take it away.

      If they try to leave to another country, arrest them for tax evasion and seize every asset they have. Don’t let them do any business in the country without paying their share. Get other countries to band together on this until there’s nowhere for them to run except shitholes. Even if we can’t stop them from being rich in Ireland (and on that note, we should punish tax havens with sanctions), we can stop them from using their wealth to affect other countries.