The world has had enough of billionaires - MoneyWeek

[kenneal - lagger]

According to Merryn Somerset Webb, editor of MoneyWeek, The world has had enough of billionaires. Coming from MoneyWeek magazine that is quite a statement although the magazine is aimed at the small investor rather then the billionaires with their financial advisors and multinational accountancy firms running their affairs.

Personally, I couldn't agree more. They are ruining the system which gives value to their wealth by hoarding so much cash that the system is falling down as a result of their hoarding. The psychopathic kleptocrats are bringing about their own downfall as well as ours. Good for the climate though.

[emordnilap]

Some filthy rich twat recently suggested that billionaires need a rebrand, to something like 'people of means'.

Well, 'mean' is the only correct bit.

[vtsnowedin]

People seem to think the average billionaire has hoarded all his wealth in gold in a vault he rolls around in like Scrooge McDuck. In reality the bulk of their assets are invested in industries that provide you and I with all the things we consume every day. The trucks delivering to the Walmart full of computers from Microsoft and Dell and Tyson chicken in the frozen food, the drugs in the pharmacy and even the candy bar next to the checkout are all owned by billionaires and the other stock holders (including your 401K retirement plan). Steal from them and you will kill the goose that keeps laying golden eggs.

[boisdevie]

All those awful people building businesses that people only use if they wish to. Nobody forces anyone to use DODGY TAX AVOIDERS or anyone else.
It's just envy and leads to the thought that taxing billionaires at stupendous rates is somehow just fine and dandy - taxation is simply theft at gunpoint.

[kenneal - lagger]

Vt, you really have been brainwashed with the American Dream I'm afraid. The modern billionaire offshores most of his wealth to a tax haven and then is goes back into little bits of paper on the London or New York money markets. Yes, they might put a bit into the stock market and property to spread their assets but the days of the billionaire holding all their wealth in the company that they founded are long gone in most cases.

If they do hold most of their wealth in the company that they founded the reason that they are billionaires is usually because they are paying minimum wages to over worked employees who do not get much or any sick or holiday money. Haven't you heard of the way the company named after the great South American River and Uber treat their workers?

[kenneal - lagger]

All those awful people building businesses that people only use if they wish to. Nobody forces anyone to use DODGY TAX AVOIDERS or anyone else.
It's just envy and leads to the thought that taxing billionaires at stupendous rates is somehow just fine and dandy - taxation is simply theft at gunpoint.

You forgot the emoticon!

[vtsnowedin]

Ken I'm afraid you are the one that has been brainwashed about the terrible one percenters.
Business is business so outsourcing to cheap labor happens but confiscating the billionaires money wouldn't stop that.
Take a peek at the newest members of the club.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewitho ... be64d93ee9

Forbes found 259 new billionaires over the past year as surging markets have pushed the number of people on Forbes’ World’s Billionaires list to a record-high 2,208. The newcomers can thank their lucky products, which range from cryptocurrency to animal style In-N-Out burgers to Hatchimals kids toys.

The richest newcomer of all: Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, at $42.2 billion. She became the new L’Oréal heiress and the wealthiest woman in Europe after her mother, Liliane Bettencourt, died at age 94 in September. The granddaughter of L’Oréal’s founder, Bettencourt Meyers had already been running the holding company through which she, her husband and their two sons own L’Oréal stock. She has also written three books, including one about the Greek gods.

In-N-Out Burger heiress Lynsi Snyder joins the billionaire ranks at $1.2 billion after celebrating a birthday to remember. In May Snyder turned 35—and received the final portion of her inheritance, boosting her stake in the beloved West Coast chain to an estimated 97% and making her a billionaire. Her grandparents founded In-N-Out in 1948. Her uncle and father, both previous company presidents, died young; by 2000, Snyder, then just 18, was the last family heir. She took over as president in 2010 and has since expanded the number of In-N-Out locations by nearly one-third to some 330.

Ginia Rinehart, an Australian mining heiress, is one of 259 new billionaires this year. (Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)

More than three quarters of the newcomers made their fortunes the old-fashioned way: as self-made entrepreneurs. This includes Canadians Anton Rabie and Ronnen Harary, childhood friends (and co-CEOs) who put together $10,000 to found the toy company Spin Master in 1994. Their first product, the Earth Buddy, resembled a Chia Pet. Now Spin Master makes remote-control Air Hogs and robotic Hatchimals, plus produces the Nickelodeon Jr. TV show PAW Patrol. The co-CEOs are worth $1.3 billion each.
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
Civic Nation BrandVoice
School Counselors Help Students Become The Change They Wish To See
UNICEF USA BrandVoice
UNICEF Is Working To Protect Children From Brutal Winter Storms

Must Read: Little Black Book Of Billionaire Secrets

Also debuting from Canada is Tobi Lütke, who founded Shopify—an ecommerce platform that powers some 600,000 online stores—in 2006. The German native learned to program by age 12 and dropped out of school at 16 for a computer engineering apprenticeship. He immigrated to Canada in 2003 after meeting his now-wife on a snowboarding trip to Whistler and eventually launched Shopify, which he took public in 2015. Shares are up 320% since then, propelling him to a $1.2 billion net worth—though he still bikes to work.

Other notable newcomers include Spain’s Alberto Palatchi ($1.1 billion), who sold 90% of wedding dress company Pronovias, which his father founded in 1922, for an estimated $655 million in October; Switzerland’s Thomas Flohr ($2.3 billion), who founded private aviation company VistaJet; and Americans Niraj Shah and Steve Conine ($1.6 billion each), who cofounded online home goods retailer Wayfair.

In all, Forbes found new billionaires in 35 countries around the globe. China added the most, with 89 newcomers, followed by the U.S. (with 45), India (18) and Germany (13). Telecom mogul Strive Masiyiwa ($1.4 billion) joins the list this year as Zimbabwe’s first-ever billionaire while Sandor Csanyi, whose company is one of the largest financial-services firms in Central and Eastern Europe, is the first to represent Hungary.

These new billionaires have amassed ten-digit fortunes in 18 different industries. Manufacturing leads the way, with 47 newcomers, followed by technology, with 29. The third most popular industry is finance and investments, with 24. That includes fortunes made in traditional financial services—including newcomers Edward Johnson IV and Elizabeth Johnson, the grandchildren of Fidelity Investments founder Edward Johnson II, worth $3.6 billion each—and, for the first time, new moguls making billions from the digital currency craze.
..........

[/quote]

[clv101]

If they do hold most of their wealth in the company that they founded the reason that they are billionaires is usually because they are paying minimum wages to over worked employees who do not get much or any sick or holiday money. Haven't you heard of the way the company named after the great South American River and Uber treat their workers?

Jeff Bezos President, CEO, and Chairman of Amaz0n, net worth $136bn.
His company employs 613,000 people. Some of them, excellent jobs with great pay working conditions. Many of them crappy jobs, poor conditions and lousy pay. Those half million jobs could have much better conditions and better pay - if Bezos wasn't a Smaug like psychopath hoarding VASTLY more personal wealth than anyone needs. He has literally a hundred billion dollars more than he could possibly need - he has to power to dramatically improve the lives of half a million of his workers, but choses not to. Sad.

[boisdevie]

If you really like the idea of Jeff Bezos losing shedloads of cash then cheer up as he's getting divorced so he's likely to have a very painful time soon.

[kenneal - lagger]

VT, all this money being accumulated by a few billionaires and not paid out in wages means that that money is being withdrawn from the general economy so that if you and I want to spend some money we have to borrow it. If we decide that we won't borrow money to spend nothing gets bought, the economy goes into recession and those stupid, greedy billionaires go broke.

Those billionaires can't get to be billionaires unless people work for them. The work of the people who work for the billionaires is worth as much as the work put in by the billionaires so why shouldn't they be paid a decent wage for their work; and by decent wage I mean one that allows them to pay for a decent house, fuel, food, water, some to put away for a rainy day and some to spend on the stuff that they are helping to make. That is not happening now with a large number of people in the world on a minimum wage of some sort.

Henry Ford worked out in the early 50s that if he paid his workers enough to be able to buy his cars, albeit the cheaper ones, he would make more cars and more money himself. Our current batch of scheming entrepreneurs aren't that clever, unfortunately, and they're ruining the very economy upon which they rely for their wealth.

[vtsnowedin]

VT, all this money being accumulated by a few billionaires and not paid out in wages means that that money is being withdrawn from the general economy so that if you and I want to spend some money we have to borrow it. If we decide that we won't borrow money to spend nothing gets bought, the economy goes into recession and those stupid, greedy billionaires go broke.

Those billionaires can't get to be billionaires unless people work for them. The work of the people who work for the billionaires is worth as much as the work put in by the billionaires so why shouldn't they be paid a decent wage for their work; and by decent wage I mean one that allows them to pay for a decent house, fuel, food, water, some to put away for a rainy day and some to spend on the stuff that they are helping to make. That is not happening now with a large number of people in the world on a minimum wage of some sort.

Henry Ford worked out in the early 50s that if he paid his workers enough to be able to buy his cars, albeit the cheaper ones, he would make more cars and more money himself. Our current batch of scheming entrepreneurs aren't that clever, unfortunately, and they're ruining the very economy upon which they rely for their wealth.

Bezos and the tax cheat river is a bit of an exception because advertisers pays him billions to flash adds in front of us as we look at our computers for things I'm never going to buy. But most other billionaires hold there wealth in stock backed up by working physical assets like Walmart big box stores and the shipping and supply lines that serve them and through them us. Your rabid dislike for all rich people is beyond all reason and shows a considerable character flaw in yourself that you can't "live and let live" .

[Little John]

This

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K8bf6dbYt4