From the technological Olympus of Silicon Valley to the urban canyons of Wall Street, a narrow club of vastly wealthy plutocrats sits on a ballooning share of the nation’s resources. One percent of Americans at the apex of the economy are hoarding over 31% of the nation’s total wealth, a cool $55tn in net worth.
Getting them to share with the rest of society, to fund redistribution or pay for public goods, is proving pretty much impossible. Their ability to move resources around, hide profit across jurisdictions, and minimize income to hoard wealth until they die appears to put them beyond the reach of taxation.
One recent research paper found that the country’s richest 384 oligarchs paid only 24% of their economic income in 2025, compared with 30% for the average taxpayer. And not all of them are getting top notch tax advice. Reporting by ProPublica revealed that some of the richest Americans – like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett and Michael Bloomberg – live largely tax free.
I would even go a step further than “get them to pay their own fair share.”
When we talk about taxing billionaires, as we are in California right now, they always say the same thing: we will just leave.
Well, maybe that’s a good thing. Billionaires flock to the US because they know they can do business with a free hand here and keep all the profits. And we see the results: capture of the state, exploitation of the workers, pollution of the media.
Maybe it would be good for the US if it were no longer seen as the billionaires business paradise and they fucked off somewhwre else to try their luck?
Go further. Start guillotining them.
Good riddance. I can’t think of the last time a billionaire did any good besides build a new worthless toy or find a way to exploit consumers and the government.
Not like we’ll collapse anyway. Most of their money is spent on overseas labor and goods because they want to hoard all they can.