I don’t understand this “billionaires shouldn’t exist” nonsense. So should $999m exist? Or 500m - should that exist? Let’s say I buy a Picasso at a garage sale for $10. Turns out it’s worth $1b! Should we cut the painting so it’s worth less than $1b? Logistically, it doesn’t make sense to me.
Warren Gunnels @GunnelsWarren
Oct 21
Jeff Bezos, worth $240 billion, sailed on his $500 million yacht to a $55 million wedding in Venice to give his wife a $5 million ring & spends $12.7 million on union busting so he can replace workers with robots. His tax rate: 1.1%. 5 words: Tax billionaires out of existence.

Oct 22, 2025 · 6:16 PM UTC

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Replying to @thesamparr
You realize "billionaires shouldn’t exist" isn’t meant literally. No one’s suggesting cutting Picassos in half. It’s shorthand for "we should redesign the economic system so that extreme wealth accumulation by a tiny minority isn’t the logical outcome." That means stronger inheritance taxes, disincentives for extractive investments (like hoarding housing stock), and systems that reward creating value for society, not just compounding capital.
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Ok. So how do you define extreme wealth. Put a number on it.
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Replying to @thesamparr
Try it on a different way: would you be okay with one person holding 99% of the world’s wealth? If not, why not? What about 98%? And so on. There’s a rationale case to be made that exaggerated wealth concentration is bad news. It’s not the person’s fault, but it’s a systemic failure of a “free market” of concentration persists past a certain point. That point isn’t arbitrary, it’s a natural equilibrium where folks with less don’t have incentive to tear down society.
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Yes
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Replying to @thesamparr
Logistically yes, it doesn't make sense. But surely you understand the core of the idea right? Being that it's obscene to live in a society where people have such insane levels of wealth while problems like poverty, homelessness and hunger exist. Tax billionaires more.
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No, I don’t.
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Replying to @thesamparr
Its not abt arbitrary dollar limits. Is their wealth circulating to benefit society? Is it earned ethically? Are they fulfilling obligations to ppl in need? The Picasso analogy misses the point. It's not abt destroying value, but ensuring wealth serves humanity & not hoarded
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How does that analogy miss th point
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Replying to @thesamparr
Bernie used to say millionaires shouldn't exist until he became one 😂
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Replying to @thesamparr
If no one can have a billion dollars the hypothetical Picasso will never be worth 1 billion.
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Replying to @thesamparr
There’s probably something between a 1.1% tax rate (which I question if it’s even true) and being “taxed out of existence,” but non-nuanced poop-faces like this are why we’ll never make that happen.
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Replying to @thesamparr
Billionaire-hating appeals to the most visceral human emotion, envy. Politicians, since the beginning of time, have exploited it. And tech billionaires have played right into their hands. Gone are the paternalistic corporate parents that promised retraining and education. Big tech has record-level earnings and is still laying people off, salivating at how many people they can fire. One change I think would make a huge difference is to lower the taxes on dividends to encourage companies to pay out cash and not just reinvest profits to exponentially increase the stock price.
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Replying to @thesamparr
Let me simplify; 1916: 1 billionaire 1982: 13 billionaires (66 yrs) 2025: 3,028 billionaires (43 yrs) That’s a 233x increase in less than half the time. During that same time Top 1% wealth tripled (+300%). Bottom 50% saw no net growth. Household wealth quadrupled since 1989. Half the population only gained 2% of that total growth. Top 10% took over 70% of the new wealth. Americans are literally downloading loaning apps to afford basic groceries…
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Replying to @thesamparr
Don’t humor this stuff man
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Replying to @thesamparr
This is dumb as fuck.
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Replying to @thesamparr
The logic is that it's an excuse for a group to coordinate and take resources away from another group. That's the logic. You should not interpret the direct and superficial message. But to be fair to them, the inequality problem is real and destabilizing. Humans do not use absolute wealth to measure fairness. They use relative wealth. On the other hand, digital technology only amplifies the winner-takes-all dynamic, which exacerbates inequality. So the whole concept of "capitalism = rising tide lifts all boats" is actually the naive illogical view that fails to account for biology.
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Replying to @thesamparr
people seem to think that if someone has a billion dollars they have money that would have otherwise gone to you. clearly that is not how it works. we are not in a fixed pie world. and they would rather blame societal issues on rich people rather than on shit policy makers as well as their own life choices.
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Replying to @thesamparr
I "knew" this for a while but it took me a while to fully accept it: For a huge number of people, the only "true" virtue is egalitarianism, meaning something like "everyone has the same stuff."
Channing Allen
 @ChanningAllen
Sep 29
Replying to @Austen
this would've been totally inscrutable to me 5 years ago now, living in nyc, i understand the mindset 100% it's literally just people to whom the only real virtue is justice. meaning something like "egalitarianism." meaning something like "everyone has the same stuff"
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Replying to @thesamparr
Also, since it’s often book wealth we’re talking about — what should be pointed out is that this has a corollary which is that this is the same thing as saying “people that build large companies aren’t the best ones to control them”
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Replying to @thesamparr
I love based Sam
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Replying to @thesamparr
How many billionaires are there, really? I think most of the super rich folks are worth way less than $1B personally Once most people sniff real wealth they start setting up trusts (and more trusts).
Replying to @thesamparr
Nobody can explain where the moral cutoff actually begins or ends.
Replying to @thesamparr
Because it doesn’t. Leftists live in a very binary understanding of the world. A little bit like a 6 yo see the world.
Replying to @thesamparr
the point is simple 999 yes, 100B no. How do you know someone has 999 or 100B? No idea. How do you enforce it? No idea. The risk of enforcing this, is that who has 100B won't spend them for the risk to be found — luckily for us crypto solves this. But I do agree that taxes need to be reformed and pisses me off that I pay more taxes than Bezos, sorry.
Replying to @thesamparr
If you like products billionaires built like Apple, Amazon, Starbucks... Why question the motivators that created these products
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