Arguing that some people demand aspirational goals as high as that in order to do what they do begs many questions: Not that their demand is invalid (as demands go, I've never found bargaining very easy, arguing for billions is beyond my comprehension) but I seriously doubt the ability to add that much value is a skill distinct enough that it can command that rate of return, against all other choices.
Not "they can't generate the ROI" as much as "others can generate that ROI just as well, it's contestable".
Fund managers (for example) vary in costs, and returns, in ways which I think undermine the proposition here.
Many people take remarkably "fundamentalist" views of peoples rights to limitless potential. "it's my right to accumulate billions if I want" is very strong in opposition to this, aside from the people who may plausibly earn billions who have an entirely rational reason to disclaim alignment here. We experienced this 6 orders of magnitude down the tree in an australian election around tax concepts called "franking credits" which were proposed to be ended by the labor party. Large number of pensioners voted against it, despite being repeatedly told they had none, and would lose none: The meme of "Labor is coming for your franking credits" was unstoppable.
Many people who will fail to become millionaires, will oppose constraint on becoming Billionaires.
A parallel but unrelated case: Tax on lottery winnings. Fair or unfair?
It's certainly true that capital flight is a risk which has to be assessed, but at that point, we really can say (to re-enter the political domain) that the super rich are holding the rest of the economy to ransom.
Apple sitting on $1T of funds deciding how to spend it best in apple shareholder interests needs to be set against apple re-distributing $1T to shareholders, who then incur tax consequences with capital gain, and the rest of the world gets to move on with things that tax can do. Keeping the money inside Apples safe harbour isn't actually useful.
Remember, money is meant to be useful. Hoarding it, is not always helpful.
It’s the value of the shares that make them billionaires.
Is the politician suggesting they should liquidate their shares? Who will own the company then? Will they keep changing ownership and diluting shares if it reaches billion dollars?
This argument doesn’t even make sense.
As far as taxes go, these are unrealised gains. Even for Capital gains to trigger, there has to be some kind of transfer/sale. And transfer/sale has a different meaning in tax and legal language.
The way rich people avoid capital gains tax is to borrow against their stocks. So they get to enjoy their wealth without paying back to the society.
> So they get to enjoy their wealth without paying back to the society.
Why is there an expectation for “someone” to be a guardian of society? Isn’t the govt functioning?
I am sorry to say, conversations like these are pretty common in echo chambers.
Aurornis•7mo ago
dangus•7mo ago
Just because a politician uses simple and catchy language doesn’t mean there isn’t policy substance behind it. Democrats have been losing for years trying to explain complicated macroeconomics to their voting base, Mamdani is one of the young democratic candidates who is a breath of fresh air.
garbagecoder•7mo ago
Cuomo was a terrible candidate.
dangus•7mo ago
I’ll also remind you that this is a mayoral race. The pew research numbers I’m citing are for president of the United States.
I am quite aware that Cuomo is a terrible candidate, that doesn’t take away from Mamdani being a very good candidate in terms of his effectiveness at conveying his message and building a coalition.
Of course none of us know yet whether he will be a good mayor.
yostrovs•7mo ago
dangus•7mo ago
You say Democrats just want to promise freebies so I’ll give you a fun challenge: find me the last Republican Congress that passed a budget that reduced the growth of the national deficit.
I’ll give you a hint there, it’s not the Tax Cut and Jobs Act nor the Big Beautiful Bill.
Meanwhile, Medicare for All was estimated by the congressional budget office (nonpartisan) to save money.
phs318u•7mo ago
I hate to break it to you but that's the exact same playbook used by the current administration.
AnimalMuppet•7mo ago
Democrats have also been losing on social justice issues while ignoring the actual economic concerns of the poor. Well, is "there shouldn't be billionaires" a social justice slogan, or is it going to actually help the poor in some way? I think it's more a social justice slogan.
dangus•7mo ago
https://www.zohranfornyc.com/platform
AnimalMuppet•7mo ago
So we're back at "slogan, with no substance".
dangus•7mo ago
That’s like saying you need substance to back up a slogan like “criminals shouldn’t break into my house.”
I think voters understand intuitively why billionaires shouldn’t exist.