This guy really proves that there are no good billionaires thing. Being good stopped him from staying a billionaire. Anyone who hoards wealth while others suffer from impoverishment and starvation is evil.
Yep. Those billions are made on the backs of suppressed wages and benefits, more employee productivity with less flexibility, enshittification, etc. It’s “earned” by squeezing it out of others.
I guess he understood that, felt guilty, and wanted to give it “back” to clear his conscience. That’s my personal take. I really want to believe there are good people with power and/or money.
Ok… but then we are beholden to where they choose to dispense their largesse. Great, the billionaires have a few pet projects they direct their philanthropy to, and it does help those recipients specifically.
But how about the lifetime earnings of the employees who saw their benefits packages shrink, their medical copays and premiums climb? Maybe that was enough to force their kids into crippling college loans instead of the parents having enough extra to help wirh 529s or just smaller more manageable loans? How about the customers who got inferior products or services that support, returns, or exchanges were obfuscated by deliberately ineffective phone menus or website resources that were designed to make people give up instead of receiving what they deserve? How about the billonaire’s pursuit of anti-tax laws to further line their pockets at the expense of government services? All of these things happen directly by command of the wealthy or by those riding on the coattails of those decisions as major investors or board of directors. All of them in service to the bottom line, and that bottom line is increased at your and my expense.
They may be good people. But you do not become a billionaire with clean hands.
That’s why its the system that needs to be killed, not billionaires. It doesn’t matter if you are good or bad, capitalism is in part a system of forced competition. A CEO who doesn’t make the hard calls for the benefit of stockholders will be replaced if he is caught choosing his moral compunctions over profits. A competitor will exploit what he might refuse to, and thus the harm is done and the “good CEO” is drummed out of the system. The only way for a CEO to remain good and a CEO is to never be tested by the markets mad search for profits. This is possible in a small way, like maybe a CEO of a small regional firm which will eventually be bought out or forced out of business. Hell, most of the strictly “moral” repercussions of an executive are hidden from them, and appear only as columns in a profit/loss report. Capitalism alienates us all from the world we inhabit, our humanity and our selves; worker and owner alike.
But regardless of this, the class interests of ceos and employees are in direct conflict. This doesn’t mean we need to kill, but we will have to fight to crush their way of life which exists as a result of the mass exploitation and immiseration of millions.
Money is power. Power corrupts. No exceptions. They get into the situation because they can no longer identify and understand their fellow man. There are no good billionaires. There aren’t any any good millionaires. And we should all do them a favor. And never allow them to achieve that status of hoarding.
co-founder of Duty Free Shoppers Group, the travel retailer of luxury products based in Hong Kong
Sort of squeezing second-hand. But you have to know his primary client pool is the business elites passing through international airports and taking advantage of a legalized form of tax evasion while exploiting the working class in sweat-shops on the mainland/surrounding Pacific islands.
A bit like becoming a billionaire by selling yachts or luxury hotels or cocaine. Even if you can argue you didn’t abuse your staff to make your mint (spoilers: you absolutely did), you know all your biggest customers did.
Technically, you’d have to declare what you are importing into the country where you live and pay tax at customs on import. It is kinda logical you dont pay VAT as a visitor since you dont live there and wouldnt benefit from the taxes you paid. Going further, I remember tax exempt cards in the 80’s you could use and show your id in stores and not pay VAT. Online versions of this exist today, I buy something from the UK and ship it to EU, I can request they not charge VAT as Im going to pay it on import.
There are different ways to accumulate wealth.
In an example from my country, Sir Peter Beck, is only a billionaire because the stock value of RocketLab has rocketed up (pun intended). His total compensation for the 2023 year was just under $1M. Source
I would rather that he concentrate his efforts to making the best rocket possible; he could in theory split his time and work to reduce poverty…but I believe that the rocket building would suffer.
There are a lot of other people working to reduce poverty.
I agree with your point that in general, most billionaires are shitty people who could do a lot more. But some people are billionaires because they are doing cool shit.
Will Sir Peter become a cunt in the future, who knows. In 10 years will we look back and see the decline to Musk levels of cuntishness?
Listen all I’m saying is if this Peter beck or anyone else holds on to a whole billion dollars for themselves then they lack empathy for the rest of humanity and are therefore evil. If he accidentally made a billion that’s fine but donate it.
It doesn’t sound like he can do that without giving up his ownership stake in his company. Or is that what you are suggesting?
Agreed, if you have a billion in cash sitting around, then do something with it.
But in this specific example, and really any example where someone gains their wealth from “doing stuff”. It is not liquid, sitting around in cash to hand out. It is usually in stock of the company they found.
While they are “young” and energetic making the world a better place, then keep on doing what you are doing. Once you “retire” from that then it is the time to donate.
