I don’t know why it’s such a difficult thing to grasp or agree with … just place a wealth cap on society everywhere
Let everyone be as greedy as they want to be, let them be ruthless a-holes as much as they want … just give them an upper ceiling of say $10 million … anything more that is taxed 100% and sent back to government and the public for public services like health care, education, infrastructure, etc
Why do we accept that one person gets to own $1 billion or more? Can one person realistically expect to live on and enjoy that wealth? And at that level, what is the purpose of growing it even further? What is the point of massive wealth? It only locks up wealth to a small group of people while withholding it from others.
Ultra wealth is a thing of the past when kings and dukes wanted to rule over the country side … if we want to progress far into the future, we’ve got to stop acting and living like apes fighting over the biggest pile of bananas.
What’s so difficult in arguing that wealth should be shared among as many as possible. And don’t give me that argument of being communist or socialist … I’m talking about a society that is fundamentally no different than the one we already have in the US, Canada or Europe … except for the part that you regulate wealth to an upper limit.
It would all still be the same for 90% of us and it would only severely affect a very small group of people who stand to lose a lot of wealth … it would sacrifice their wealth for the benefit of everyone else. And really, it wouldn’t hurt them at all … the only thing it would damage would be their egos, they’d still live a very well off lifestyle … it’s not like we are asking for them to give a blood sacrifice or to call for their beheading at the guillotine.
What’s so hard to understand about that?
The problem isn’t necessarily with the IPOs. If an unprofitable company wants to go public with nothing to offer but empty promises, why shouldn’t they?
The real problem is how these companies have grown as large as they have with no profits, and are dominating the US economy. In a sane world, ordinary investors wouldn’t be lining up to buy shares of these companies that may never show a profit. What makes it even worse is how indexes are bending their own rules to get these companies in. Many ordinary people might not even realize how much their retirement is tied into these companies at this point.
Now, educated investors might see these as a lotto ticket. Put a small amount into each one, and maybe one or two hits big and generate outsized returns. But those folks are not gambling with their pensions. I have a bad feeling that when it all falls apart, the country as a whole will be left holding the bag, either because the stock market craters to the point that no one can retire, or the Feds step in and bail it all out
If an unprofitable company wants to go public with nothing to offer but empty promises , ehy shouldn’t they?
Because its fraudulent and in the end its always the people that have less that will end up suffering the consequences?
But that’s the thing, it’s not fraudulent to run a business that loses money. And these folks are committing no fraud, they are entirely honest in their filings that show they are burning through money with no hope of actual profit.
Yet, people keep buying. It’s like they care less about the underlying business, and more about catching a profit before it all falls apart.
They don’t need to be fraudulent, if they can get just as much investment by being honest.
The “people” buying are retirement accounts that actual people can’t control
Most of us can’t control line-item investments, but we can move that money around. I’d bet the “super duper low risk” categories don’t hold much or any AI stock at the moment. Anyone know?
why should a government care about those with nothing to offer it?
If an unprofitable company wants to go public with nothing to offer but empty promises, why shouldn’t they?
Because it hurts the public? Do you not think the people should ever defend themselves?
The whole arrangement is remarkable: investors get to cash out on an AI valuation nobody can justify, pension funds get handed the risk, and if it blows up we’ll be told the economy is too important to let it fail.
Google’s Sergey Brin spent $100m opposing California’s Prop 40, a one-time wealth tax that would put the funds toward healthcare and other public services.
I’m just amazed that this is legal. In my book, Sergei would right now be enjoyingnthe view out of a prison window for that stunt alone…
why shouldn’t people be able to run ads of arbitrary content?
We could also just stop tying people’s entire futures to a 401k. That would solve all of this.
This is a billionaire problem as well as a deregulation problem (and of course, there is absolutely a feedback loop in play). Wealth disparity has become a vast chasm, and deregulation allows megacorps and billionaires to leverage their already insane wealth with the investments and retirement funds and pensions of the general public, via index funds and ETFs to continue to multiply their already nonsensically insane wealth.
Don’t forget that selective regulation can be worse than none.
The stage is already set to use regulatory capture to protect tech monopolies in the name of security and safety.
Can’t have these useful tools in the hands of citizens who are not engaged in maximizing shareholder value.
I mean, yeah. We have selective regulation - and selective enforcement of said selective regulation - already. If you’re trading enough significant figures, the SEC demonstrably does not give a flying fuck what you do in the vast majority of cases.
It’s long past that time. Tax the hell out of the ultra-rich!
You shouldn’t even be able to do an IPO if you have more debt that profits.
What can go wrong? Little reckless IPOs never killed anybody and never tanked world economy not even once… or twice… or thrice… or… oh well… how the fuck is this legal again?
The IPOs don’t concern me so much as the total amount of our economy AI has tied up. AI investments account for the majority of stock gains and almost all 2025 GDP gains. The Buffett Index, total stock valuation vs. GDP, stood at 225% last year. It was around 130% in 1929 and 2008.
No, this doesn’t feel legal and shouldn’t be in any case.
sounds like someone is gaming the economy
the world economy is not any countries responsibility, and money is speech and any restriction of speech is unethical.
that’s some mad take
Copyright is a restriction on speech. So are libel laws. Are those unethical? I’m on the fence about copyright myself.
libel depends on omnicents in order to not falsely charge people with it.
edit: if you wanted a good example of speech that is more justifiably censored look to revenge porn and child porn laws
Financial obesity is neurotoxic, an existential threat to any society that tolerates it, and needs to cease being celebrated, rewarded, and positioned as an aspirational goal.
Corporations are the only ‘persons’ which should be subjected to capital punishment, but trillionaires should be forced to transition into billionaires, and billionaires should be euthanised through taxation.
Naomi Klein is awesome
Last I checked, that time started at least as far back as 2021
Any large enough fund should have their own teams for rating the securities. Americans, why are your pension funds so shit?
