If you have the money Elon Musk has, it’s not really work, it’s a hobby.
Because you can do whatever the fuck you want all day every day. Not a single day is work if you are a billionaire.
If we flipped the script, and the people working the shittiest jobs in America got Elon Musk money for working what would happen? Then gave the rich the same wage the lowly worker would earn?
Submitted 14 hours ago by Patnou@lemmy.world to [deleted]
Comments
Buffalox@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
DomeGuy@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
If you are 20 years old, expect to live to 100, and can imagine maybe spending $1 million per year, your maximum lifetime expenses are only $80,000,000. Once you have a large enough share of this that investment returns can earn the rest, you do not ever need to work again
The threshold for “no need to work” is way lower than $1,000,000,000. More than 12 times lower, in fact.
Nollij@sopuli.xyz 11 hours ago
Your point is valid, but the math is oversimplified. Due to inflation, $1m in 1946 (80 years ago) is worth about $18m today.
Still, $1b is way more than enough to live an entire life of luxury, without ever needing to worry (in any serious way) about money.
oeuf@slrpnk.net 11 hours ago
Even if you are a millionaire. If you had a million invested in a simple index fund you would have got paid about 130k last year for doing absolutely nothing - just for holding wealth.
If you’re working, it is people with investments like that who are literally depriving you of either higher wages or better state provision of stuff you need.
BassTurd@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Even just being really conservative on the ROI and going with 4.5% gains, if a person has $1,000,000 invested, that’s $45k a year to do nothing. The US median income is around $65k for reference. In lower cost of living places, a person can definitely live off of $45 a year assuming no debt. It won’t be the most comfortable life and it’s probably not worth retiring, but any other income could supplement for QoL upgrades, or further be invested, meaning more ROI, and compound interest, which means even more money.
Buffalox@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Exactly.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 11 hours ago
It’d end up like that time Zimbabwe just thought they could solve poverty by making more money so it took like a billion dollars to buy a loaf of bread.
stoy@lemmy.zip 14 hours ago
Unless we take the assets of the rich, their wage won’t matter much
sun_is_ra@sh.itjust.works 7 hours ago
Abdul Nassir of Egypt did that in the 1950s, didn’t end well
Proprietary_Blend@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
Who gets to choose which jobs are the shittiest?
Maybe you should watch Trading Places.
Malyca@lemmy.zip 10 hours ago
The money would corrupt the poor
BassTurd@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Are you saying that Elon’s money is divided amongst the workers, or that each worker becomes a billionaire?
I’m all for taxing billionaires out of existence and paying the working class more money, but there are a lot of really shitty people in the working class too. Think of someone you’ve worked with that was a complete tool shed, then imagine what it would be like if they had “fuck you” money.
If we’re saying that all workers get fat pay raises to allow them to purchases larger ticket items like a car, house, vacations, and still have money to invest for retirement, then the economy would do better. If people have extra money, most will spend it, with puts cash into circulation that’s used to pay people. If people can buy more then companies can make more to supply. That creates more jobs, which means more income, which means more spend. Now, that doesn’t work if the dollar loses value because we just made everyone rich and a couple hundred billionaires poor.
Basically, if we could get 100 billion dollars amortized out to people that need it most in the US, they could get out of debt, and start spending, boosting the economy. It’s one of the reason I think student loan forgiveness could have been one of the best things for the US economy under Biden, but Republicans couldn’t stomach helping people out, so here we are.
Arcanepotato@crazypeople.online 13 hours ago
There was another comment talking about taking assets and while I agree rich people often don’t have wages, I think what is missing is looking at the fundamental power dynamic.
Wherever it means now, “working class” has been meant to describe people who fund their lives with employment income, in contrast to aristocracy or those who make money off their investments. I’m using investments in a super broad way here: stocks etc, landlords, business owners pay wages to employees, sole proprietors, etc. basically anyone who isn’t paid for their time in the service of an employer.
The income of the working class is controlled by those who profit from their labour. It’s not even that “society” values certain jobs over others, it’s that the people with the money have the capital and own the means of production and therefore get to decide how much they will pay people to work for them.
The simple examples that are used to illustrate the means of production aren’t really adequate anymore, but they are still part of it. Say you own a saw mill. You can hire people to operate and maintain it on an hourly basis, pay your expenses from the revenue and any extra becomes profit. You aren’t earning an income necessarily. Adding a few more modern twists: You can take loans against the saw mill, sell stocks in the saw mill to raise money, use those stocks as collateral against loans, use your connections to get preferred access to feedstock, lobby the government for subsidies or to regulate the industry to make competition harder, etc. A lot of that isn’t taxable, and it prevents others from successfully challenging established businesses if they formed a co-op for example. That’s why taxes or redistributing some assets wouldn’t solve the problem.
plyth@feddit.org 14 hours ago
It would be outsourced to independent contractors who bid for the jobs.
TomMasz@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
It would be more interesting to have them switch jobs. A lot of rich people are playing with inherited money and have never done anything like working at McDonald’s or picking fruit. Seeing them trying to survive at the bottom could be very entertaining.
Diddlydee@feddit.uk 13 hours ago
It’d probably end up much the same in the system we’re in.
originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 14 hours ago
rich people dont 'earn' money by working. so, none of this makes any sense. youre conflating several different valuations/reimbursement streams and i dont see how it could be resolved
just tax the fucking rich.
the hilarious bit is you could tax them at 100% over x and they will still be richer than you will ever be... because generational wealth is purposefully very hard to track, tax and really understand. the u.s. tax code was written for these people