• andros_rex@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I worked in a school with a pretty good amount of students whose families had probably not entered the country legally.

    I had a student who would be out at the end of the day. Like, yeah, lots of kids are zonked out by the last hour, and the fake sleep to watch silent TikToks was ever popular.

    But this girl was out. The bell would ring and I’d try to wake her up. Like starting with a “hey the bell just rang, time to go home.” Gently nudging her to get no response. This was routine.

    She worked a full time job at night. She didn’t get to sleep. She worked at night, she went to high school during the day.

    There have been times that I’ve had to work three jobs to survive as an adult, and I’ve worked my share of fifteen+ hour shifts with no OT because who needs labor laws?

    But that girl had to work harder to survive than any billionaire I’ve met could even conceive of (and I fucked a billionaire for quite a while). She was a child. She should have been tired because she had stayed up all night playing video games or talking to her friends - she should not have been tired because she had to have a full time job to survive as a teenager in high school.

    • cm0002@lemmy.worldOP
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      2 months ago

      and I fucked a billionaire for quite a while

      Soooooooo

      Are we just glossing over this or…

      Lmao

      • andros_rex@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Yeah, I married and was economically devastated by a billionaire. Turns out, if you can afford good lawyers, you can keep the house and ditch your spouse with a hopeless amount of CC debt. Long story.

        • cm0002@lemmy.worldOP
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          2 months ago

          Oh. Well I was totally thinking that was going to go in a “I was a secret billionaire’s mistress” sort-a-way. Not, “I have a legit supervillain backstory because of a billionaire” kinda way, sorry lol

          • andros_rex@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            The ups of my life are things like dinner for three at the top of Harrod’s that cost more than my current apartments rent (and steak. oh god actual fancy steak house steak. foie gras on a rare filet), the downs are analingus for grocery money (pan fried chicken hearts in butter with rice got me through college).

  • WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    We need to wipe them from existence.

    Let every nation have a maximum wealth cap. 1000x the median national household income. Anything else is taxed at 100%. This cap in the US would be about $80 million today.

    But if you’re somehow in flagrant violation of this limit? If your wealth is the equivalent of over one billion 2025 dollars? Unless you quickly earn a multi-billion fortune and immediate give it away or spend it, having a net worth over $1 billion will be a felony. It will be a capital offense. Oh you’re secretly billionaire, having hid your vast illegal fortune from the IRS? You are guilty of trying to amass a geopolitically-significant level of wealth. We’re going to treat this as seriously as we would someone who attempts to build their own personal nuclear weapons. Really, you are guilty of a form of treason. Except instead of aiding a foreign nation, you were trying to become a threat to your nation yourself. And the traditional penalty for treason will be applied.

    This is the world we could have. We could, if we wanted it badly enough, simply make being a billionaire a capital offense. Force them to give away or spend most everything they have. Either way, given or spent, wealth is distributed enough so that no individual can threaten the nation through their own personal wealth.

    It is time we wiped billionaires off the face of the Earth. No individual should ever be allowed to become so wealthy that they become a threat to nation states.

  • Draupnir@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    This assumes billionaires fell into money. Not true. The person with two jobs puts in more hours ongoing, but they either aren’t or don’t know how to actually work

      • Draupnir@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        There’s many facets, but some core tenets are to be highly focused, highly committed, and increasingly efficient in efforts to make a goal (in the right direction) happen.

        The idea I’m thinking of explicitly here though is scaling this definition to hold increasing amounts of leverage over time. To put it simply, your continued highly focused, efficient, and effective work leads to a system where more work gets accomplished overall, and the time that you put in accomplishes much, much more.

        • null@slrpnk.net
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          1 month ago

          Can you give a practical example of how someone can start with no money, and “work” their way up to $1B?

          • Draupnir@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            John Paul DeJoria: Born to immigrant parents in Los Angeles, DeJoria faced early adversity when his parents divorced, leading him to live in a foster home at age two. By nine, he was selling newspapers and Christmas cards to help support his family. After periods of homelessness and working odd jobs like janitor and door-to-door shampoo salesman, he co-founded John Paul Mitchell Systems in 1980 with just $700. Later, he launched Patrón Tequila, revolutionizing the premium tequila market. His net worth stands at around $4 billion, per Forbes, a testament to his self-made journey.