Should Billionaires Even Exist?

[BrokeLoser]

You know what’s not cool anymore? Billionaires.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Elizabeth Warren believe some Americans have too much money, and they’re not alone.

Their very existence is now the subject of political debate, sparked most recently by tax-the-rich proposals from two prominent politicians.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) proposed placing a 2 percent tax on wealth over $50 million and 3 percent on assets over $1 billion. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said she wants to increase the marginal tax rate on those earning more than $10 million a year.

Their ideas went viral, starting a mainstream conversation about inequality and wealth.

This kind of talk has always existed among a certain group of hard-core progressives and left-leaning economists, but heading into next year’s presidential election, the idea that the super-rich should pay their fair share is gaining real momentum.

Marshall Steinbaum, a research director at the left-leaning Roosevelt Institute, has advocated taxing the rich at higher rates for years. “We do not need billionaires,” Steinbaum told HuffPost. “The economy’s done better without billionaires in the past.”

For Steinbaum, higher taxes on the wealthy would mean freeing up more money for everyone else. If you think of the economy as a pie, right now, billionaires are getting just about all of it, while we’re all left splitting just one slice.

If you raise taxes on the richest, their incentive to grab at every morsel declines. The theory is they’ll fight a little less hard to depress everyone else’s wages if they know that every extra million is going to get taxed away. A high-paid CEO has less incentive to keep workers’ wages low so he can get a bigger payday.

Billionaires were once a rare breed. In the past few decades, as the U.S. has slashed tax rates, their numbers have exploded, far outpacing inflation.

Since 2008, the number of billionaires in the world has doubled, according to a report published last week by the anti-poverty nonprofit Oxfam. In just the last year, billionaires raked in an astonishing $2.5 billion each day.

In 1982, the first year Forbes debuted its list of the 400 richest Americans, there were about a dozen billionaires. The richest man in the U.S. back then was an 85-year-old shipping magnate with an estimated worth of $2 billion, or $5.2 billion in today’s dollars.

"We do not need billionaires. The economy’s done better without billionaires in the past."
--Marshall Steinbaum, Roosevelt Institute​

Nowadays, Forbes’ list is entirely billionaires. The richest is Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, worth $160 billion.

More: Should Billionaires Even Exist?

I agree! Billionaires aren't cool anymore! The playing field is tilted like the Titanic before it went down. There is no logical reason for so few to have so much. What do you think?

Should Billionaires Even Exist?
LefTard Logic:
“Those terrible billionaires whom create thousands of jobs and pay the bulk of our nations taxes should not exist....HOWEVER, those tens of millions of blood sucking, taxpayer robbing, job stealing, community destroying, criminal minded illegal wetbacks definitely should exist.”

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Healthcare costs started skyrocketing long before 2010. Increases were inevitable.

and why do you think that happened? any idea?

it started when people assumed that their insurance should pay for all medical expenses. So the medical providers could raise prices since the insurers would just pay up and raise premiums on the people.

same reason that college tuition went up when the government started guaranteeing student loans of any amount.

Its not complicated if you actually think about it for a few seconds.

Actually, the government underpays doctors and hospitals for their patients. Some are actually refusing new Medicare and Medicaid patients. The increases by the providers are because of government. If the government only pays 2/3 of the bill for a doctors visit, no big deal, but on a 500K surgery? That's a problem. They have to recoup that money somehow.

That's why when a provider closes down, it's usually in lower income areas where there are few private and insurance paying customers. It's mostly government covered customers.

partially correct, but its a tax game being played by medical providers. They create a bill of 250K for a surgery, accept a medicare or insurance payment of 80K and then claim a tax loss for the other 170K. that's why you see a charge of $5 for one aspirin on your hospital bill. Its a game.

They create a bill of 250K for a surgery, accept a medicare or insurance payment of 80K and then claim a tax loss for the other 170K.

You can't claim a tax loss based on an imaginary price.
If the depreciation expense on the surgery equipment and operating room, doctor's and nurse's salaries, blood, oxygen, anesthesia, insurance, recovery room, etc., etc., etc., comes to $60,000...they have a net profit of $20,000, whether they billed $80,000.....$250,000 or $1 million.

Look at any hospital's balance sheet, you will see that I am correct. None of them shows a profit for tax purposes. Now, you are correct that they actually make a profit, but they pay no corporate taxes because of the way they account for costs and revenue.

Look at any hospital's balance sheet, you will see that I am correct

A balance sheet shows assets and liabilities. Not cash flow or income.

None of them shows a profit for tax purposes.

Most are non-profit. But if your tax claim was true, it would still have nothing to do with imaginary prices.

but they pay no corporate taxes because of the way they account for costs and revenue.

Again, nothing to do with accepting an $80,000 payment for a $60,000 expense originally billed at $250,000.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

People have to remember with this kind of topic........what is the experience and what is the perception?

The OP lives in the middle of nowhere. THE consummate definition of Bumfook. He has to drive hours to even see a structure that stands taller than one story. Offuckingcourse he is going to be angry and miserable as hell. You will find that most hard core socialist guys are that way because they are angry and miserable for being relative losers and they want to blame somebody else for their shitty lot in life........its consistent with all who love socialists. They want EVERYBODY to be as miserable as they are.

Nobody is making highly wealthy people go away ever.......its just the way it is. Raise the bar for yourself...........d0y.

Don't say never. If these commies get a strong hold of the entire federal government, they have the power to make it exactly that way.

 

[LaDairis]

and why do you think that happened? any idea?

it started when people assumed that their insurance should pay for all medical expenses. So the medical providers could raise prices since the insurers would just pay up and raise premiums on the people.

same reason that college tuition went up when the government started guaranteeing student loans of any amount.

Its not complicated if you actually think about it for a few seconds.

Actually, the government underpays doctors and hospitals for their patients. Some are actually refusing new Medicare and Medicaid patients. The increases by the providers are because of government. If the government only pays 2/3 of the bill for a doctors visit, no big deal, but on a 500K surgery? That's a problem. They have to recoup that money somehow.

That's why when a provider closes down, it's usually in lower income areas where there are few private and insurance paying customers. It's mostly government covered customers.

partially correct, but its a tax game being played by medical providers. They create a bill of 250K for a surgery, accept a medicare or insurance payment of 80K and then claim a tax loss for the other 170K. that's why you see a charge of $5 for one aspirin on your hospital bill. Its a game.

They create a bill of 250K for a surgery, accept a medicare or insurance payment of 80K and then claim a tax loss for the other 170K.

You can't claim a tax loss based on an imaginary price.
If the depreciation expense on the surgery equipment and operating room, doctor's and nurse's salaries, blood, oxygen, anesthesia, insurance, recovery room, etc., etc., etc., comes to $60,000...they have a net profit of $20,000, whether they billed $80,000.....$250,000 or $1 million.

Look at any hospital's balance sheet, you will see that I am correct. None of them shows a profit for tax purposes. Now, you are correct that they actually make a profit, but they pay no corporate taxes because of the way they account for costs and revenue.

Look at any hospital's balance sheet, you will see that I am correct

A balance sheet shows assets and liabilities. Not cash flow or income.

None of them shows a profit for tax purposes.

Most are non-profit. But if your tax claim was true, it would still have nothing to do with imaginary prices.

but they pay no corporate taxes because of the way they account for costs and revenue.

Again, nothing to do with accepting an $80,000 payment for a $60,000 expense originally billed at $250,000.

Health Care accounting = make all money vanish into your pockets and claim you didn't make anything

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Healthcare costs started skyrocketing long before 2010. Increases were inevitable.

and why do you think that happened? any idea?

it started when people assumed that their insurance should pay for all medical expenses. So the medical providers could raise prices since the insurers would just pay up and raise premiums on the people.

same reason that college tuition went up when the government started guaranteeing student loans of any amount.

Its not complicated if you actually think about it for a few seconds.

Actually, the government underpays doctors and hospitals for their patients. Some are actually refusing new Medicare and Medicaid patients. The increases by the providers are because of government. If the government only pays 2/3 of the bill for a doctors visit, no big deal, but on a 500K surgery? That's a problem. They have to recoup that money somehow.

That's why when a provider closes down, it's usually in lower income areas where there are few private and insurance paying customers. It's mostly government covered customers.

partially correct, but its a tax game being played by medical providers. They create a bill of 250K for a surgery, accept a medicare or insurance payment of 80K and then claim a tax loss for the other 170K. that's why you see a charge of $5 for one aspirin on your hospital bill. Its a game.

Losses don't make up all that much, just a portion. I worked in medical equipment for ten years, and that's the way we used to do it. You can't have different charges for different coverages. The law is you have to charge the same for everybody. Since you can't charge government more than private insurance, you just increase the cost to all. That's one of the many reasons private insurance is nearly unaffordable.

It's also a problem when people like Sander's talks about Medicare for all. His calculations are based on what they are currently paying. But if those rates remained the same, doctors and hospitals would close down across the country because there would be no private insurance to make up the losses on. So whatever figure they come up with, you have to add at least 30% to their estimates in order to keep these places in business.

After I eat breakfast, I have to head out to Sam's Club and Walmart's to pick up my insulin. Why do I have to go all the way over there? Because the manufacture of my insulin made a dirty deal with Walmart. Any other pharmacy, they charge between $65.00 and $80.00 a vial, and I use four a month. Walmart has it for $24.99 per vial.

I pay cash for my medication because I have no coverage. But people who do have coverage just go to any pharmacy, and their insurance pays over three times what I pay for mine at Walmart and Sam's, which is the same company. They have a limit of 4 vials per month each which is why I have to go to both stores. They have the limit so you don't black market the stuff and make a profit off of people that didn't investigate these huge price differences.

I get all that. But if you have no insurance you will get a bill for the entire 250K (in my example) then they will agree to give you a discount to the 80K that they would collect from insurance or medicare if you had it. then, for tax purposes, they will write off the 170K as a loss.

please don't confuse financial reality with tax avoidance schemes, even though they are technically legal.

Losses are not really what most people think they are. I have many write-offs every year. It doesn't mean government refunds me those costs or losses, what it means is I still have to pay for those costs, just not pay tax on them. So it really doesn't boil down to all that much.

If that were not true, those clinics and hospitals in lower income areas would still be open today. But no medical facility can survive on government alone with what they are reimbursed. Bottom line is there are all kinds of reasons why medical insurance is so expensive or not affordable at all.

 

[Circe]

You are thinking the billionaires should give it all to you, right?

 

[San Souci]

I'm sure many of us would, but that's why we're not wealthy. People with money are usually obsessed with it. That's what drove them to being wealthy in the first place. After they made one million, they wanted two. After they made ten million, they wanted twenty. Can you imagine how much money one billion dollars is? There is no way to reasonably spend that kind of dough. But people who make that billion dollars want to turn it into two billion dollars even though there is no way to spend it. It's an obsession.

Hence, they are ******* psychopaths.

And those psychopaths continue to produce.

That is why a free market is a win for everyone.

People don’t blame them for their problems. They blame them for ******* up the country.

There is no free market. It’s a fiction the right likes to talk about, to dupe the dumb.

Is it a free market when Walmart comes to a town and undercuts all of the small businesses and runs them out of business? I say it is, what do you say?

Means nothing. You need to recognize the macro view.

We clearly have a crony capitalist economy.

So? It works. Socialism would destroy us. ALL of us. Not just the worthless poor.

 

[Andylusion]

Clearly we need to stop the lobbying.

Shrink the government by 75%, people will have less incentive to buy government.

We need serious campaign finance reform.

I agree, remove all contribution limits.

No. Just vote Republican. Good things happen when ya do.

Well, I can say for certain, that if you vote Democrat, bad things will happen to you. Bad things happened to me, thanks to democrats.

What bad things did Democrats cast upon you?

So in 2006, I had a great private insurance policy, that was $67 a month, and covered everything I needed.

By 2010, to this day, no such plans exist. The cheapest plan that is available at all, is $350/month, and that's with a lower max cap, and a higher deductible, than my $67/month plan back in 2006. Obama wrecked all of it.

Healthcare costs started skyrocketing long before 2010. Increases were inevitable.

So lets review. I paid $67 a month, for a very good insurance policy. It had lower deductibles, and higher max lifetime cap.

Saying that healthcare cost were skyrocketing before hand, doesn't mean much, if they were still dramatically cheaper than today. And the research shows this.

See the problem? The cost of healthcare by most estimates quadrupled in 10 years.

The average individual insurance premium went from $160 to $400 in 10 years.

Would you claim the that in 1998 that the premium was barely $50? Of course not.

The average insurance deductible $2084 to $4328 in 10 years.

Do you think that the average deductible in 1998 was under $1,000?

By that logic, in the 1980s, health insurance should have been barely $20 a month for a $200 deductible.

Of course not. Insurance costs have dramatically increased under Obama care.

Insurance costs were not going insane prior to Obama care. They simply were not. It was fabricated by the left, as an excuse to socialize the system, and make people dependent on government. And it worked.

But it did not make anything any better. It made every aspect of the system worse.

 

[Andylusion]

The more government gets involved in healthcare, the higher the cost, and the worse the service....

Free markets reduce cost, flush out waste, fraud, and theft....

Government always increases cost, waste, fraud, and kleptocratic theft.

Doctors make $500k per year
Nurses make $150k per year
Drug companies make billions
Senators who voted to socialize senior drugs got drug company checks on the Senate floor, and billed the taxpayer for RETAIL COST, no volume discount...

Right, and we have seen that in every country that has socialized medicine.

You guys don't seem to get this. If you give government the power to hand out money, there is going to be people willing to spend money to influence that.

The solution is to not have it socialized at all. As long as you give power to the government, there is automatically an incentive to influence that power.

Think about it a different way. What is your local city counsel member, gave control of YOUR SALARY... to the government. Thus, the only way you will ever get a raise, is if the city counsel approves it.

Would you have an incentive to go meet that counsel member? Yes you would. You would take him out to dinner, and then give him your case as to why you should give a raise.

And of course, when you give people reasons, you are only going to give the good side of you.

Again, we see this in every country that pays for medications, or anything for that matter.

Why do you think that in Greece, they had enough train car engineers, that they could have assigned a single engineer to each and every train car, and still have engineers to spare?

Because the special interests, the unions the train company, influenced government to give more and more money, when there was no need.

This is how all government works.

Take France, and their cheap medications. The FDA found that one drug sold in France for years, has zero health benefit. It did effectively nothing. How does a drug that has zero value at all, get billions of government dollars? Special interest, lobbying, money influencing the system.

In the free market, that could almost never happened. No one would pay $100 for a pill, that didn't actually help anything. Only when government pays the bill, then suddenly all you have to have is the placebo effect, make people think it's doing something. After all, they are not paying the cost of the pill, so a placebo effect is worth the low price to the patient.

Again..... this is how all government works.

 

[Grace Is Stoked]

I don't necessarily believe that being a billionaire should be illegal but I personally would not be comfortable having that much money and I also personally believe that simple living is more in line with my own moral, ethical, and religious beliefs than having all the money in the world.

 

[San Souci]

I don't necessarily believe that being a billionaire should be illegal but I personally would not be comfortable having that much money and I also personally believe that simple living is more in line with my own moral, ethical, and religious beliefs than having all the money in the world.

It is not HAVING the money. It is the EARNING that is fun. If one is the type able to do it in the first place.

 

[Grace Is Stoked]

I don't necessarily believe that being a billionaire should be illegal but I personally would not be comfortable having that much money and I also personally believe that simple living is more in line with my own moral, ethical, and religious beliefs than having all the money in the world.

It is not HAVING the money. It is the EARNING that is fun. If one is the type able to do it in the first place.

Yes, people who end up being millionaires and billionaires have a different mindset that's for sure.

 

[San Souci]

I don't necessarily believe that being a billionaire should be illegal but I personally would not be comfortable having that much money and I also personally believe that simple living is more in line with my own moral, ethical, and religious beliefs than having all the money in the world.

It is not HAVING the money. It is the EARNING that is fun. If one is the type able to do it in the first place.

Yes, people who end up being millionaires and billionaires have a different mindset that's for sure.

Yes. Some people forget that they create JOBS.

 

[OnePercenter]

Clearly we need to stop the lobbying. We need serious campaign finance reform. Then we need to break up all the near monopolies and get markets working. We need to get some power back to the workers.

Clearly we need to stop the lobbying.

Shrink the government by 75%, people will have less incentive to buy government.

We need serious campaign finance reform.

I agree, remove all contribution limits.

No. Just vote Republican. Good things happen when ya do.

Well, I can say for certain, that if you vote Democrat, bad things will happen to you. Bad things happened to me, thanks to democrats.

What bad things did Democrats cast upon you?

So in 2006, I had a great private insurance policy, that was $67 a month, and covered everything I needed.

By 2010, to this day, no such plans exist. The cheapest plan that is available at all, is $350/month, and that's with a lower max cap, and a higher deductible, than my $67/month plan back in 2006. Obama wrecked all of it.

The Affordable Care Act isn't an insurance policy. Your insurance company increased the cost.

 

[Andylusion]

Clearly we need to stop the lobbying.

Shrink the government by 75%, people will have less incentive to buy government.

We need serious campaign finance reform.

I agree, remove all contribution limits.

No. Just vote Republican. Good things happen when ya do.

Well, I can say for certain, that if you vote Democrat, bad things will happen to you. Bad things happened to me, thanks to democrats.

What bad things did Democrats cast upon you?

So in 2006, I had a great private insurance policy, that was $67 a month, and covered everything I needed.

By 2010, to this day, no such plans exist. The cheapest plan that is available at all, is $350/month, and that's with a lower max cap, and a higher deductible, than my $67/month plan back in 2006. Obama wrecked all of it.

The Affordable Care Act isn't an insurance policy. Your insurance company increased the cost.

The ACA made requirements on insurance companies, and costly regulations, that both drove out competition, and drastically increased cost to insurance companies, that had to passed onto the policy holders.

The ACA is entirely to blame. Again, we didn't see quadrupling increases in cost across the entire market, in the 10 years before the ACA, that we did after the ACA.

 

[OnePercenter]

If a billionaire donates 99% of his income to charitable causes, is he still a billionaire?

And if a lower middle class person donates 0.001% of his income to charitable causes, what does that make him? Discuss.

If a billionaire donates 99% of his income to charitable causes, is he still a billionaire?

He'd be a millionaire.

And if a lower middle class person donates 0.001% of his income to charitable causes, what does that make him?

Broke.

I donate far more of my income to charitable causes than that. In fact, I donate more than 10% of my income to charitable causes. I am not broke. I have a positive net worth, with many investments.

So you are wrong, as fits the pattern of your posts.

I was simply giving the answer the post deserves. If you have market investments or investments tied to the market you'd better park them for a while, the market is going to get really hairy this summer.

First, people have been saying that since 2007. Ironically when the market was going down, that is exactly when I started investing in the market.

Additionally, if the market goes down this year or next, I will increase my investments.

When stocks are on sale... that's when you buy. Even left-wingers know this. Warren Buffet famously said, if you want to buy low and sell high.... first you have to buy low.

The problem is, when stocks go low.... all the people like you say "market is going to get really hairy this summer!".

So? That's when you should invest even more.

Good luck!

 

[Grace Is Stoked]

I don't necessarily believe that being a billionaire should be illegal but I personally would not be comfortable having that much money and I also personally believe that simple living is more in line with my own moral, ethical, and religious beliefs than having all the money in the world.

It is not HAVING the money. It is the EARNING that is fun. If one is the type able to do it in the first place.

Yes, people who end up being millionaires and billionaires have a different mindset that's for sure.

Yes. Some people forget that they create JOBS.

They do but I guess my personal opinion is that you would think that their company and especially their employees would be better off if the multi-millionaire or billionaire founder or owner didn’t allow themselves to get to that level because they gave more money back into the company and it’s employees beyond simple employment.

 

[OnePercenter]

No. Just vote Republican. Good things happen when ya do.

Well, I can say for certain, that if you vote Democrat, bad things will happen to you. Bad things happened to me, thanks to democrats.

What bad things did Democrats cast upon you?

So in 2006, I had a great private insurance policy, that was $67 a month, and covered everything I needed.

By 2010, to this day, no such plans exist. The cheapest plan that is available at all, is $350/month, and that's with a lower max cap, and a higher deductible, than my $67/month plan back in 2006. Obama wrecked all of it.

The Affordable Care Act isn't an insurance policy. Your insurance company increased the cost.

The ACA made requirements on insurance companies, and costly regulations, that both drove out competition, and drastically increased cost to insurance companies, that had to passed onto the policy holders.

The ACA is entirely to blame. Again, we didn't see quadrupling increases in cost across the entire market, in the 10 years before the ACA, that we did after the ACA.

Reagan deregulating the HMO Act eliminated competition.

What costly regulations?

We have less insurance offerings than before ACA?

 

[gipper]

Hence, they are ******* psychopaths.

And those psychopaths continue to produce.

That is why a free market is a win for everyone.

People don’t blame them for their problems. They blame them for ******* up the country.

There is no free market. It’s a fiction the right likes to talk about, to dupe the dumb.

Is it a free market when Walmart comes to a town and undercuts all of the small businesses and runs them out of business? I say it is, what do you say?

Means nothing. You need to recognize the macro view.

We clearly have a crony capitalist economy.

So? It works. Socialism would destroy us. ALL of us. Not just the worthless poor.

Lol. Crony Capitalism works???? WTF?

Worthless poor? WTF? **** you.

 

[OnePercenter]

Well, I can say for certain, that if you vote Democrat, bad things will happen to you. Bad things happened to me, thanks to democrats.

What bad things did Democrats cast upon you?

So in 2006, I had a great private insurance policy, that was $67 a month, and covered everything I needed.

By 2010, to this day, no such plans exist. The cheapest plan that is available at all, is $350/month, and that's with a lower max cap, and a higher deductible, than my $67/month plan back in 2006. Obama wrecked all of it.

Healthcare costs started skyrocketing long before 2010. Increases were inevitable.

and why do you think that happened? any idea?

it started when people assumed that their insurance should pay for all medical expenses. So the medical providers could raise prices since the insurers would just pay up and raise premiums on the people.

same reason that college tuition went up when the government started guaranteeing student loans of any amount.

Its not complicated if you actually think about it for a few seconds.

Actually, the government underpays doctors and hospitals for their patients. Some are actually refusing new Medicare and Medicaid patients. The increases by the providers are because of government. If the government only pays 2/3 of the bill for a doctors visit, no big deal, but on a 500K surgery? That's a problem. They have to recoup that money somehow.

That's why when a provider closes down, it's usually in lower income areas where there are few private and insurance paying customers. It's mostly government covered customers.

Since insurance companies own or derive profit from 95% of providers and hospitals in the US, isn't it the insurance companies themselves refusing to accept government assignment?