this post was submitted on 17 May 2026
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[–] OhStopYellingAtMe@lemmy.world 4 points 5 hours ago
[–] njm1314@lemmy.world 11 points 8 hours ago

No. I never agree with anyone using engagement bait titles.

[–] lightnsfw@reddthat.com 5 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Only 5%? Mine is approaching 30% and I can't afford shit.

Also sending out checks is fucking stupid. Just lower our taxes.

[–] itslilith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

It's 5% of wealth, not income. But still, anything short of 100% will not stop the parasites. But its a nice gesture, if nothing else

[–] lightnsfw@reddthat.com -4 points 6 hours ago

But its a nice gesture, if nothing else

Not particularly. 5% is nothing to them.

[–] glimse@lemmy.world 4 points 8 hours ago

It's so crazy to me that people eat stuff like this up. Pages like this make BANK slapping some text on a bunch of image while adding absolutely nothing to the conversation.

Everything they make exists not to make a difference but to drive page views to their stupid accounts. It's so, so transparent.

And in this house, we hate all ads

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 0 points 4 hours ago

I think 99% of people agree with this - that Bernie Sanders wants to do it. Do they support it, though?

[–] ContactClosure@lemmus.org 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

5%?! How about 50%, for starters.

[–] atcorebcor@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 hours ago

So your wealth is halved every year?

[–] BeardededSquidward@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

No, it should be 10% at least.

[–] FlyingCircus@lemmy.world 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

We could tax a billionaire 95% of their wealth, and they would still have more money than you or I could reasonably spend in a lifetime.

Oh yeah, I'm a big proponent of no more billionaires. But it appears to a lot of average people smaller amounts are more palpable because they think they'll ever be that rich.

[–] SabinStargem@lemmy.today 1 points 7 hours ago

No. It doesn't go far enough. After a certain point, both personal and corporate wealth should be 100% taxed, with loopholes closed and massive penalties imposed on any who previously exploited them. Government critters should solely live on salaries, unable to buy or sell stocks, nor receive 'gifts'.

[–] boaratio@lemmy.world 8 points 12 hours ago (4 children)

I have the same amount of power to make this happen as Bernie Sanders has.

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[–] PieMePlenty@lemmy.world 10 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (5 children)

I don't know.. why is medical care so expensive in the first place? Why are teachers wages so low? Why is there such a huge wealth disparity?
Seems like these are systematic problems which need to be solved with a full system restructuring rather than throwing money at it. Not to dunk on Bernie, but If I were American, I'd be hoping for more concrete solutions.
5% tax sounds nice (imo, its no where near nice enough lol) but what are we taxing here exactly? Billionaires don't actually have any money. There's a systematic problem to solve right there.. how can people be filthy rich, yet have no actual money to tax?

Like this, a very 'American idea' to me is 'student loan forgiveness'. You borrow money from a bank (for profit institution), you pay it to get educated at a university (for profit institution) and get the loan forgiven by the government (tax payers). Systematic problem. Just make universities public and they get funded by the tax payers directly.

[–] JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

Feels like a band aid on a dismembered limb imo..

Would you rather bleed to death?

[–] Karjalan@lemmy.world 8 points 13 hours ago

I get your misgivings but... Changing it for the better has gotta start somewhere.

Even this idea is way too "progressive" to have any chance of coming to pass

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[–] HrabiaVulpes@europe.pub 3 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Polish government decided to send check to all parents as a way to promote having kids.

You know what happened? All the products needed by young kids suddenly rose in price. Sending checks to americans will do the same - all necessities will just become expensive exactly by amount of money they got.

Want to change the world? Tax the debt machine (5 or 10% of every transaction involving stocks and obligations, including using them as a loan security) and treat companies like people (as in - tax them on income, not on profit).

[–] krisevol@lemmus.org 2 points 9 hours ago (3 children)

It's supply and demand, if your raise the demand of course the products cost more. What did they expect?

[–] WaxRhetorical@lemmy.world 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

If supply is, for example, 10.000 units a day, and demand rises from 5.000 to 8.000, there is no reason why the price should increase, other than corporate greed.

[–] krisevol@lemmus.org 0 points 4 hours ago

This isn't what was happening. Supply was 10k, and demand was 10k. They gave out money to people, and supply stayed 10k. Of course prices increases under these conditions.

[–] plyth@feddit.org 2 points 7 hours ago

Things only cost more if the people pay more. With spending discipline, people could have had actually more. Most things are industrially produced. Supply likely was no bottleneck and the increased demand could have been matched.

The implication is that people already own everything that they can buy. Wage increases only increase inflation. Fighting for higher wages only increases the prices.

[–] HrabiaVulpes@europe.pub 0 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

There was no increase to amount of kids conceived after the "financial help" was redistributed. Prices of child necessities grew after the funding was passed, before first money reached the parents.

[–] krisevol@lemmus.org 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

And we are surprised? That exactly how the market works.

[–] HrabiaVulpes@europe.pub -1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

And, as I said, this will exactly happen in the USA - they will give handouts, necessities will grow and all the handout money will just pass back to billionaires with interest.

[–] krisevol@lemmus.org 1 points 4 minutes ago

That exactly what would happen. I agree.

[–] MeowerMisfit817@lemmy.world 6 points 13 hours ago

The fact they had to ask says a lot.

[–] anon_8675309@lemmy.world 3 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Tax them how?

It’s complicated but depending on how they’re taxed you might not get shit out of them.

[–] whoisearth@lemmy.ca 3 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

IMHO it's a global problem and American exceptionalism won't solve it.

Billionaires in general need to cease to exist. Bloodshed is coming mark my words.

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