$100,000 would mean a whole lot to almost all of us, very little to a multimillionaire and almost nothing to a billionaire.
There’s a limit to how many mansions, yachts, airplanes, classic cars, expensive paintings, banquets, expensive trips, and investments a person needs for comfort, fun, and security. That consumption limit is probably reached at a net worth below $100 million.
Beyond that consumption limit, money is power. Power to buy politicians, influence, and propaganda. Power to pervert our democracy. No way would we have democratically decided to prioritize going to Mars over fighting climate change and solving the problems of the nation.
In 1982, there were only 13 billionaires in the US. In 2023. after the Reagan/Bush/Trump tax cuts for the rich, there were seven hundred and forty eight of them and they owned as much as half of the rest of us put together.
Half the people own just 1.3% of the nation’s wealth.
The government runs a huge deficit every year. The national debt is on is on an unsustainable trajectory.
We should go back to an extremely progressive income tax and tax the billionaires besides.
Please don’t think of this as punishing the rich people. There are plenty of philanthropists who give their excess wealth to very worthy causes, but the government has a critical need for more revenue and the wealthy are the ones who have it
Back to timely aphorisms
Back to tariffs.
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Problems Considered
|Climate Change | National Debt | Income Taxes | Health Care | Abortion |
| Tariffs | Inflation | Moving On | Electrification | Homelessness |
| Independent Media | Education | Gender-neutral Pronoun|
Aphorisms
| Martin Luther King, Jr | Ghandi |
| Jesus | Jewish | Mohammad| Buddha | Hindu |
| Dick Feynman | Robert Ingersoll | Mark Twain | Will Rogers|
| Timely | Altruistic |
Anecdotes
Dick Feynman Winston Churchill