hakase

@hakase@lemmy.zip

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  In the US throughout the 1900’s the highest income tax brackets were often in the 70%'s, reaching into the 90%'s at times, and we did not see what you are suggesting.

  We did not see what I’m suggesting because that’s an income tax, and in order to abolish billionaires we’d need a wealth tax.

  Increasing the taxes on Gabe Newell’s profits from owning Valve would not suddenly cause him to lose money, just to gain less money.

  Yes, but if you slow the income of a person who is already a billionaire, you get a billionaire who is still getting richer, only more slowly. This does not get rid of billionaires.

  In order to take someone who is already a multibillionaire and make them not a billionaire, you have to take away property that they already own. In the case of Gabe, since most of his wealth is tied up in Valve stock, in order to make him not a billionaire you’d need to make him sell stock in Valve, which would dilute his ownership and control over the company.

  Do you understand the problem now?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  1. I don’t think this would solve the problem. Even if all of the outside investors are restricted to less than $1 billion in capital each, pooling their funds would easily be able to outweigh Gabe if he’s subject to the same restriction.

  2. If we increase taxes on all companies across the board, the overall appeal of each individual corporation would likely stay about the same. In fact, since Steam is so profitable that might make them more appealing as an investment in a world where corporate taxes are much higher.

  3. Corporate taxes are usually on profits, but in order to tax Gabe enough for him to no longer be a billionaire the vast majority of those taxes would have to come out of Gabe’s ownership in Valve. I’m not sure why you don’t think this would be an issue.

  4. This seems pretty unrealistic/idealistic. I guess we are already positing an unrealistic world where billionaries are taxed out of existence, so imagining functioning regulation and antitrust suits isn’t that much more of a stretch. Still, that does seem to support my point that without significant other societal change taxing Gabe so much that he’s no longer a billionaire would likely significantly worsen Valve as a company.

  I’m certainly not against taxing billionaires out of existence, but I still think that the question of what that would mean for corporate ownership is a difficult/complex one, and I don’t think your answers here really take that complexity into account.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  How do we tax Gabe that much without necessarily watering down his share in the company and ensuring that outside investors enshittify it in the process? Genuine question.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Jesus take the accelerator⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, you’ve overshot and ended up in Japan.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What was the first game you ever bought ?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  First game I ever remember buying was Final Fantasy II. I was probably about 11 and it was definitely worth it. A friend had let me borrow it for a few days and I immediately knew that I needed to get my own copy. Still one of my favorite games ever.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon listens to British music⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Kink culture has co-opted it from plain old getting cheated on to a consensual kink.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Straight up spiritual⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Thank you. I don’t need the modern equivalent of laugh tracks to tell me whether or not to laugh at a social media post.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨tonyhawktruther⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Sterling is the coiner of the term “chungus”. The Big Chungus meme specifically is from years later.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Waffle House: Pull up then. 😐⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Same. Literally my favorite restaurant, though I don’t go as often as I used to due to the price increases.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Death by linguistic imprecision⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Not according to speaker judgments.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Linux rules! How do you like my desktop?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  As a Cinnamon user, I just assumed they use literally any other DE than KDE.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨ard⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Dotard!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨For years you have seen them in memes. How about what do they look like now after all these years have passed⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s her mom IIRC

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How Scottish Gaelic is helping protect Scotland’s seas⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Article is 5 years old.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨McBludda Please 😫⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Yup

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tune a fish⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  This entire thread is /c/badlinguistics.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tune a fish⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Americans languages do love redundancies.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tier list tier list⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Why is this so accurate?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨i mean⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The Atari 5200 controller is also pretty legendarily bad.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨You are being misled about renewable energy technology - YouTube⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Do you have a source for him going off on people on set? I’ve looked around a bit but can’t find anything.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨ICE agents attempt to arrest US Citizen in St Peter, Minnesota⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Nah, turned out it’s just nepotism as usual. The woman’s husband personally knows the police chief.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨ICE agents attempt to arrest US Citizen in St Peter, Minnesota⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  If your husband is personally friends with the police chief, yes.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Banan⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Image

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Too late⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  DDPTE

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Daft Hands - Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Oh wow, flashbacks to freshman year of college.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Accidental rapture⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  TIL bones have gender.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Insulin⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yup, but their products don’t work as well, don’t work for everyone, or have other downsides. Banting’s original insulin would be dirt cheap today, but it’s shit compared to what we have now, so the best products on the market today charge a premium for either efficacy or convenience.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Stupid sexy raft⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s ironic, by trying to get them to hate each other he accidentally became something for all of them to rally against.

  Major Payne already taught us that this works:

  “They hate you!”

  “Good. It’ll draw them close together, make 'em a team.”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Game library⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah I can always stand to put another thousand hours into Monster Hunter World.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It's always been women in STEM.⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yup, never let a pesky thing like the truth get on the way of a good story.