Should billionaires exist?

[Dunfermline Don]

As a colleague of mine once said when discussing the wealth of one of the passengers on the cruise ship we worked on. ‘You don’t make that sort of money by being nice to people!’

[welshbairn]

54 minutes ago, alta-pete said:

 

The basic point, maybe clumsily put, would you strive if after a certain point 90% of your gain was taxed?

I’m self employed and already struggle to motivate myself into the band where 40% of my extra effort is taxed. Net result: I, and therefore the wider economy, are less productive than they could be.

 

You should get taxed more so you'd have to be more productive to survive.

[sjc]

8 hours ago, Cerberus said:

I always wondered why China has so many billionaires.
Communism at its finest.

China is only Communist in the Political sense. Not the economic sense.

Their form of Capitalism also infuriates the Americans too!

[Marshmallo]

17 hours ago, Dele said:

So we should spend our earnings on services provided by a person who, in turn, then gives that money back to us? 

That's exactly how money works

[Marshmallo]

 

[Hedgecutter]

44 minutes ago, Dunfermline Don said:

As a colleague of mine once said when discussing the wealth of one of the passengers on the cruise ship we worked on. ‘You don’t make that sort of money by being nice to people!’

Bit of a lazy sweeping statement imo. 

Former boss (company founder) of mine for example was exceptionally sound and even offered us all temporary paycuts rather than forcing redundancies when everybody else were being cut left, right and centre.  He hit millionaire level through a buyout and everybody was chuffed for him rather than insanely jealous*. 

*well, maybe a little jealous. 

Edited November 1, 2019 by Hedgecutter

[Ross.]

12 minutes ago, Hedgecutter said:

Bit of a lazy sweeping statement imo. 

Former boss (company founder) of mine for example was exceptionally sound and even offered us all paycuts rather than forcing redundancies when everybody else were being cut left, right and centre.  He hit millionaire level through a buyout. 

Definitely. Dealt with all manner of high net worth cunto's over the last decade, old money, new money, some ultra high net worth, others asset rich but cash poor, and relatively few were c***s. If anything, I find the folk who are truly minted to be fairly sound, it's the ones who are doing OK but think they are about to hit that next stage that tend to be the c***s.

That said, one billionaire I have had to converse with on multiple occasions is absolutely sound when dealing with him personally but he has donated multi millions to the republican party and backs them at every election, so perhaps he isn't all that nice in reality!

[Fullerene]

14 hours ago, MixuFixit said:

I guess if Jeff Bezos has lot of money then working at Amazon must be a cushy well paid job with great terms and conditions.   Am I right?

[BFTD]

Some folk missing the point a bit; it's not about the money, it's the power. Millionaires have to attempt throwing their weight around a bit to get their way; billionaires generally don't need to bother, as politicians and policy makers will have their interests in mind without even needing to be asked.

That's the real reason nobody should be allowed to accrue these amounts of money. They're in charge now; that's why they need it.

[ICTChris]

1 minute ago, Fullerene said:

I guess if Jeff Bezos has lot of money then working at Amazon must be a cushy well paid job with great terms and conditions.   Am I right?

Hes been absolutely hammering the overtime.

[Detournement]

2 hours ago, alta-pete said:

 

The basic point, maybe clumsily put, would you strive if after a certain point 90% of your gain was taxed?

I’m self employed and already struggle to motivate myself into the band where 40% of my extra effort is taxed. Net result: I, and therefore the wider economy, are less productive than they could be.

 

Has it not dawned on you that if you do 35 hours a week rather than 50 then either the 15 hours will be picked up by someone else or it wasn't actually necessary in the first place? 

[Fullerene]

5 minutes ago, Detournement said:

Has it not dawned on you that if you do 35 hours a week rather than 50 then either the 15 hours will be picked up by someone else or it wasn't actually necessary in the first place? 

In a lot of cases, probably wasn't necessary in the first place.

Parkinson's law: Work expands to fill the time available.

I have met plenty of people who work crazy hours as some sort of macho thing.   Incredibly inefficient at everything they did.  Why be efficient if it just means you have left with several hours still at work and nothing to do.

[BFTD]

1 hour ago, alta-pete said:

‘Better off’ is the debatable point.

Yes, I’ll have more money but what is the point in that if I’m working a 60hr week? Am I not ‘better off’ by working a 35hr week, making less money, and having an extra 25hrs to do with as I please?

I’m at the wrong end of the spectrum in relation to a debate about billionaires I appreciate but the original point was that in the 70s when super income was taxed at 90% there was no point (ie nigh impossible) to become a billionaire. If you/your enterprise were making that sort of money the incentive was there to spread the wealth, reinvest it or go do something leisurely.

My own view - and it won’t be a world view - is that there’s still nae danger I’m working when, by comparison to the original point, a relatively modest 40% of it disappears to HMRC.

Genuinely not sure what you're arguing for here. Is it that working long hours is inherently disagreeable because you like your free time, or that taxes should be lowered so that you'll...sacrifice your free time for money you don't need?

If there's 25 hours of extra work that could be done, employ someone else to do it while you're at the golf/football/strip club/park.

[NotThePars]

Everyone defending the right of billionaires to exist is Fry 

 

[Hedgecutter]

4 hours ago, BigFatTabbyDave said:

Genuinely not sure what you're arguing for here. Is it that working long hours is inherently disagreeable because you like your free time, or that taxes should be lowered so that you'll...sacrifice your free time for money you don't need?

If there's 25 hours of extra work that could be done, employ someone else to do it while you're at the golf/football/strip club/park.

I'd imagine you'll get folk that'll hit a certain point and then think "the smaller cut that I get from the higher tax band isn't really worth all that effort".   I suppose that's different for employed folk that pretty much need to do all the work given to keep their jobs and those that are self employed and can actively choose to ditch the extra as and when they choose.  That's what I'm taking from his post anyway.

Anyone who's self-employed and paying 41% tax on any part of their earnings is 'doing it wrong' as if you put the higher band through as a dividend rather than salary then you 'only' pay 32.5%  (and a chunk of the lower rate is only 7.5% compared to the usual 20%).  Stupid really, but that's what the government let you do.

Edited November 1, 2019 by Hedgecutter

[BFTD]

19 minutes ago, Hedgecutter said:

I'd imagine you'll get folk that'll hit a certain point and then think "the smaller cut that I get from the higher tax band isn't really worth all that effort".   I suppose that's different for employed folk that pretty much need to do all the work given to keep their jobs and those that are self employed and can actively choose to ditch the extra as and when they choose.  That's what I'm taking from his post anyway.

Anyone who's self-employed and paying 41% tax on part of their earnings is doing it wrong as if you put it through as a dividend rather than salary then 'only' pay 32.5%  (and the lower rate chunk is only 7.5% compared to the 20% that salaried folk pay).  of course, that's for people set up as a Ltd company, not sole trader.

That sounds good. They're happy with what they've made, and someone else would get the extra work.

Doesn't sound like a problem, unless they're the only surgeon in the world who can perform an incredible difficult procedure, in which case we just threaten to kneecap them if they stop working. Sounds like a plan.

[dorlomin]

I do not think there are many countries of the UKs size or larger with few to no billionaires whos economies I would like us to emulate. 

It is very clear that it is far too easy for companies to set up structures that make taxation easy to avoid and its too easy for accumulated personal wealth to be placed beyond the reach of the tax systems of the countries that helped them to generate the wealth. 

I do not think there is a quick fix or one wave of a magic wand that would redress this and I really think that ideas that there should be "no billionaires" is some kind of fix to a modern economy is for twitter retweets and up votes on reddit, not serious economic plans to change direction of our country (or countries should be come to RUK and Indy Scotland). 

Perhaps the most pessimistic take away from things like this and Brexit is that the world has become so complex that people are only interested in sound bite solutions. 

 

[Cerberus]

I'd rather have no money that be a wee man tbh.

[Hedgecutter]

109.9 billion, pfft.  In todays money, Andrew Carnegie's net worth was 372 billion USD. 

No bad for a Fifer, eh.

[BFTD]

8 minutes ago, Snafu said:

How would Bruce Wayne be Batman and fight crime without being a billionaire?

Spider-Man seems to manage alright, and he's always potless.