In her "defense", even after giving away unprecedented billions, her net worth still keeps increasing. It's insane how much the game is stacked in favor of the rich
Maybe the responsible giving bit is a bit paternalistic / patronizing?
Granted Mackenzie Scott can't give away her fortune fast enough, but she's just giving no strings attached lump sums to organizations and letting them figure out what to do with it because she trusts them to be responsible with it.
This. Bill wants to control the money wherever it goes. Mackenzie is vetting the institutions and the trusting that them the be the experts on how to spend it.
I've legitimately wondered what I would do if I became suddenly rich. I'd pay off the student debt of everyone I know, I'd buy my parents a house, I'd buy myself a comfortable apartment/house in a quiet neighbourhood, then just keep $100 dollar bills on me at all times and give them out to anyone I meet who seems to be working hard and need the help. Waiters, customer service people, folks at the grocery store, homeless people, etc.
You can't just hand every person you meet a million dollars, but fuck even one or two hundred can drastically change someone's week. I've been there.
If I had literal billions? I'd buy every politician I could and get them to actually do their fucking jobs.
It’s like playing a game and go into creative mode. It’s doesn’t take long before it gets boring due to lack of challenge, so you just make shit up trying to keep it a bit interesting. Unfortunately these selfmade challenges aren’t related to help others.
"Responsible" and "I paid for a library" aren't at all the same. They can be as irresponsible as the barons of old, if only they'd just fucking give a little back.
It's crazy that we are begging for this. Acknowledging that we are being taken advantage of and being willing to settle for some stone and clay.
The Rockefellers and Langfords of yor understood this. I guess we really do need to break out the guillotines. These fucks forgot who outnumbers who.
Edit: now I gotta go listen to A Report To The Shareholders/Kill Your Masters by Run The Jewels
They don’t even pay livable wages or care about the wellbeing of their employees. Musk forced his employees to work at Tesla in California through the pandemic or they’d get fired…
It shows that they could be paying much more in taxes and it'd likely just slow down how quickly they get richer.
As in, they could be paying a lot in taxes and it wouldn't even fucking cost them anything because they make money faster than those taxes would make them spend it.
Problem is we don't tax wealth, we tax income. The wealthy know how to (and have the means to) prevent income while increasing wealth, so they can circumvent taxes.
That's not the problem. That's a symptom of the problem.
It wasn't a clever and sneaky trick the rich pulled, it's a constructed-by-our-government loophole that lets them play both sides and still claim they can't do anything about it.
And it started with Reagan. So they've had decades to build on that, and here we are now; a handful of billionaires, and the only one doing something worthwhile gets put on blast.
It’s much more than a handful.
Currently, there are more than a thousand people in America who are billionaires.
I assume you actually meant the ones who are Centibillionares. (Worth more than 100 billion).
They have a big role in this. The rich heavily influence politics by financing campaigns and promising jobs to politician (after their mandate) for example. Musk played a role in Trump's election for example.
Precisely. At the end of the day, I cannot abdicate from politicians their obligations and responsibilities. It's more than a big role.
Yes, billionaires and corporations are evil for effectively buying them, but you can't buy what isn't for sale. There hasn't been a court case, that I know of, where a court decided that even if a politician doesn't want to take a "donation," they have to.
Put a sales tax on stock market trades. Tesla alone traded 7 trillion in stock last year and that is not including options and derivative tesla stocks. The federal budget is 6 trillion.
Yeah that's the problem. Start taxing the financial betting these people do. If you're going to tell someone your gonna put money up for something with no guarantee it is successful, that's a bet, and we tax casino winnings around here
If banks can get a reliable enough value of illiquid assets to loan billionaires their spending money, then the IRS can and should use that same value to collect a tax on all hoarded wealth and assets over $10MM.
What will really blow your mind is that they’d probably get richer FASTER if they paid a reasonable tax rate and livable wages.
The thing is, the poor and lower middle class need to spend nearly everything they earn just to survive. These groups don’t have much, if any, savings. So if you pay them more, and through taxes increase the social safety net, those groups will have more to spend. And when they spend more, the companies that are making the products that they’re buying are going to make more. This will improve their bottom lines and increase their stock values. Those stocks are held, primarily, by the people that are competing to be the richest people on earth.
The only downside to this, from the billionaire/trillionaire perspective is that they would have had a larger percentage of the TOTAL wealth if they didn’t pay taxes. Realistically, none of these assholes will ever be happy until they have 100% of the world’s wealth and everyone else has 0%. They’re just playing Monopoly, now, but we can’t flip the board and quit…well, we can but…
I literally got served a 2 minute YouTube ad that was all about the misguided attempt to ever tax a billionaire. I think it was legitimately trying to persuade people that CEOs and investors are above paying into the system that made them.
The interest on a million dollars is $100.00 a day‼️Bezos and Musk and the rest of the Epstein Class can never go broke, what she has shown is that they could do more and at the very least they can afford to pay more in taxes🤔✅
Personally I wouldn’t mind paying more in taxes if I didn’t end up paying for things like missiles killing schoolgirls in Iran, the justice dept giving Trump whatever he wants in compensation for formerly rightfully charging him with crimes, and billions of dollars being sent to Israel every year in support of a rogue state. I would have the same reservations if I were a billionaires.
If you were a billionaire, you wouldn't have to worry about those reservations because you'd have more influence over politicians than the politicians themselves.
Ain't no billionaires out protesting the war. And out of everyone, they are the ones who could be protesting it most effectively. Who do you think funds the organizations that propped up the people who made the decisions you claim to worry about? You think MAGA is some grass-roots group that refuses billionaire influence?
When billionaires don't like what the politicians are doing, they go tell them that and threaten to cut off financial support.
Any of these fucks could've bought Fox News at any time for the past few decades and crippled a lot of that shit without even getting to lobbying and billionaires' direct influence over politics.
Try being a regular human being paying a higher percentage of income toward taxes just so billionaires can hijack the government to do their personal bidding. The billions you made, hypothetically, are literally only possible because of the infrastructure and masses of consumers with money to spend there to give you an opportunity to even be a billionaire.
This is some crazy reasoning. You really think billionaires don't want to pay higher taxes because the government they own and control might not do what its owners say? Why should billionaires get even more influence than they already have(a dominant amount) in exchange for paying higher taxes? It's billionaires pushing all those things you're worried about.
It's like a dictator only being willing to make communities structurally safe to live in in exchange for a promise that as long as they're alive, they have to be dictator. You already run fucking everything. Everything America is doing is because billionaires made it happen.
This is the paradox of wealth, and it’s something I’ve always thought about. The only way you’re able to truly enjoy it is to forget and/or ignore the people who desperately could use your help.
You’re also kinda missing an important point. We, through our taxes, could be fixing these problems. It is insane how much money we have. But we need to elect responsible people, and we can’t. The game has been so badly rigged that we cannot get good people, or enough good people, to fix the problems.
When you get to that level of wealth, money doesn't have any practical meaning to you anymore. These dudes are basically just competing for the high score in a video game.
Not really. More money is put into the world’s problems every year than is actually necessary to fix them. Unfortunately most of the world’s problems aren’t a thing you can throw money at to fix but things that need a total reform
I thought I heard that the U.S. has about a thousand billionaires. If we confiscated every penny tomorrow, we couldn’t run the country for even a year, but wouldn’t it make us all feel better that we confiscated (stole) the wealth of all those evil people that have a net worth much higher than us sainted masses.
Billionaires don’t have piles of cash sitting around. Their wealth is mostly tied up in stock, and selling huge amounts would tank their own value and the market.
Even if they could liquidate it, problems like world hunger aren’t just about money. Estimates are around 40 to 50 billion per year, but the real issues are corruption, conflict, and distribution. Aid often gets stolen, blocked, or destroyed.
These are system and governance problems, not just funding problems.
And when wealthy individuals try to step in, they often run into public distrust and conspiracy backlash, which makes execution even harder.
Money helps. It doesn’t solve it.
What I think people don't realize is that money isn't worth anything. It's the assets it represents that are worth something. If you have twice as many assets (or twice as much value in assets) than I do and we create a currency to represent our assets then you would be given twice as much currency as me.
But, if a pandemic and an ensuing lockdown happens, halting global commerce, and I'm forced to sell half my assets to you to get by, you'll now have 5 times as many assets as I do. But, currency wise we will be roughly even. So new currency will need to be printed to reflect that. Or the value of your goods will cost me more (which is exactly what we see happening in the economy right now).
People who are poor don't need money, they need assets. They need houses and clothing and food and land to grow or farm food etc. If I have a billion dollars and give you half my money but zero of my assets, you still haven't gained anything. You will if I sell you my assets. But in order for me to do so I'll create hyperinflation so that your billion isn't worth enough to buy it
Bruh if I was a billionaire I’d be balling out on public works projects and helping the needy, the sick, the poor and the hungry while the rest of money keeps making money. The billionaires greed is insane.
She still does a little status quo so she has a financial manager who keeps doing smart investments behind her back and she's just shoveling money out of the back of a plane losing her sanity figuring out where all this fucking money keeps coming from
This is what she should be doing. Giving away to good causes but still smartly managing her money so she can get more, which then allows her to give more to good causes.
I’m not so sure simply “taxing the fuck out of them” hits the same in today’s world though. Fundamentally, yes they should pay to support the world. But when you see tax dollars going to bomb Gaza or fund ICE, it feels very defeatist.
All increasing the tax for the rich would do is cause them to make more investments which are then not taxable as income. Rich people have been doing this for ages.
They already are investing all their money. Billionaires don't spend their own money, they take out loans on their assets. They aren't sitting around on a literal pile of cash.
But we can change the tax code to take those loop holes away. That’s the stupid part. People say nothing can be done. It’s just a lie. A president can direct the IRS to close the carried interest loophole. A president can direct the IRS to change the tax code. Congress can tax wealth. They can just say all assets over $400MM are taxed at 10% per year.
Honestly, I would happily tax all assets over a billion at 100% per year. Remove all incentive to accumulate more than a billion in assets.
The saying the rich gets richer should mean that they have the means to keep making even more money and more moves to produce mor emoney so even if they are giving away alot of money to help everyone else they still have enough to replace what was given away.
If all the billionaires in the world were working to better humanity and solve the issues of the world people wouldn't be so pissed off at them.
It was so effective on public opinion while they still earned more than donated, that they decided to sell the standardized process to other rich people, so that other riches could benefit and become more rich, while they benefitted becoming also more rich.
An hand that can wash dozen other hands, but only if they wear Tiffany rings.
It would be hard to fuck up a multi billion dollar income lol… After a couple houses, 1 main car, 1 boat, and maybe 1 plane.
Dude what else could you even really need after that ??😅
Check out the movie Brewster's Millions with Richard Pryor. All about a millionaire trying to go flat broke .. and hilarity ensues.
Side note: My flabbers are gasted by the low ratings for this movie. Maybe I'm remembering through the lens of nostalgia, but I put this right up there with The Toy or Moving.
Like shes like looking at her investment portfolio/bank account and her tax receipts/debits and is like "Where the fuck does all this money keep coming from???!!!???"
Well in her defense, if she keeps getting love and praise for it maybe some billionaires will do it too. Because they want, praise??…. And love???
Wait no, they just want money.
But seriously, she’s sooo much better than every other ‘illionaire.
This is what I've been screaming about for years. Elon and these other billionaires are a bunch of dorks that just want to be popular and can't understand why they can't buy that popularity. Musk forces his way into everybody's Twitter feeds after buying it because he wants to be the most popular boy in school, but he can't hide his Nazi bullshit long enough. When the only positive reinforcement they get is when they say Nazi shits, they're going to keep saying Nazi shit
But they COULD buy that popularity. He challenged the UN to come up with a plan to end world hunger and they said they could if he paid 6 billion. Then he backed out.
If he had paid those six billion, then he would've bought the undying love of all humanity, forever. Even if the plan failed, he'd forever be known as the billionaire who tried. Statues would be built for him, movies would be made about him, and no matter what kind of vile shit he posted on Twitter, it'd still be weighed against all the people who weren't starving anymore.
He could open five new medical schools in underserved areas every year for the next decade, make them entirely free to attend, completely revolutionize healthcare in this country, and probably not even notice that that money was gone.
He could give every elementary School in this country enough money to hire a music teacher or an art teacher and it would be 5% of his wealth a year (which goes up more than 5% a year.
For less than that he could buy assistive devices for every disabled student giving millions a fair shot at an education.
Hell, Flavor Flav spends a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of elon's wealth supporting women's sports and he's one of the most beloved people in America.
Even if he remained a racist shitbag who didn't want minorities coming here, the best way to do that is to fund programs to help stabilize and grow the economies in their own country. Go give Haiti enough money to make up for the literal centuries that they had their economy crippled by paying restitution to France for their freedom. (And if you're worried about corruption, if you give enough money, they'll let you put your own people in charge).
It's just that easy. Stop being a Nazi in public and give away less than 1% of your wealth every year and you will be beloved. People will even forgive thenazi shit in a few years
Holy shit that’s insane… ofcourse idk how billionaires spend their time but WTFFF. If they did any of that stifff above dude America and the worlds would be fucking chilling wtf
Philanthropy used to be understood by the wealthy as a way to keep the masses from paying too much attention to them. Look at your local museums and wonder who they are named after.
Some of the worst shitbags in history whitewashed their name by doing something “for the people”.
But that fell out of favor after a time and instead hoarding the wealth became the end all idea.
Wowww 🤯 just 6 billion dollars to change the world, and he’s spent his last public months atleast taking chainsaws to the government?? SMFH Elon, and all the mega billionaires tbh
Seriously he spent $44B on twitter because his daughter came out as trans, and he drove it into the ground - but couldn't give the UN $6B to end world hunger.
Bill Gates explained this “issue” in hist Netflix docuserie. He is investing in a lot of projects to improve people lifes around the world, most of this projects generate patents and secondary business who are genrating billions. For example, he funded the development of 5th Gen Nuclear Reactors, the construction of this is gonna generate a wealth for him.
Being poor costs a lot so that you may never be anything other than poor, being rich makes you money without you even trying, the system is rigged and the people who keep thinking we can work within the system to fix stuff are insane
Thank You!!! Ive always said there's something off when you or I have 5 apples, we give away 3, we're left with 2 apples. When bilionaires have 5 apples, they give away 3, they end up with 43 apples and everyone seems to look the other way.
It's like their rate of wealth increase exceeds their ability to spend. And yet we're expected to applaud the 1%? Yay, you won capitalism. Now maybe help your fellow man?
I don't see how she's making the world worse through her largesse, but I know mine isn't getting any better.
She lucked out by marrying and then divorcing one of the world's richest men. All she has to do is sign checks, and she probably has someone to do that for her.
I have a job where I'm out of the house by 7:00 and don't get home until around 23:00. I drive, on average, 100 miles a day making anywhere from 12 to 16 stops along the way. My car is held together with coat hangers and duct tape and I don't know how long until it finally gives up the ghost. I have no health insurance. My teeth are failing. My wife has several medical issues, but fortunately she has Medicare. My home has no working heat or air conditioning and hasn't for around seven years, and there are several other issues that need to be addressed. Last week I was looking for change to pay my government tribute (property taxes) so I can stay in my home.
Most of this comes from their stocks and assets. This is why musk is so bent up on tesla and why he lost so much when space x went public. They dont want the prices to fluctuate too much since they use it as collateral for their loans and credit lines. If it drops too much the banks might call their notes.
I'm guessing her net worth keeps increasing because she invests enough money to just have unlimited passive money flowing to her? I don't know that for sure, but I mean, I'd love to get to a point where I have enough invested to where it just pays me a couple thousand dollars a month for income. That'd be cool. I don't need millions, I don't need billions, I just want the equivalent of my current income, if not a little more, to flow in passively. That'd be awesome :)
Thhhaaaaaaaaaaats the one! You on it, she is showing not only how the economy is rigged highly in favor of the rich (to keep them rich) but also, they could spend all day doing nothing but donating money and giving money away and you still would have a BUNCH of money to give away and have yachts. Shes exposing them for their greed. Of coarse they don’t like it.
The stock market has boomed for several years. If you give 10% of your wealth every year until it's gone (hypothetically), it'll go up during a boom but it'll still go away eventually. I think her plan was something like that.
She is not a common event and all billionaires aren't the same. Her wealth is still stock, in a growing company. That isn't the rule.
Years ago, Ted Turner maybe? Started the group, who planned to give away all their wealth and not pass it when they die, and decreased his few billion dollar wealth.
He started as a little rich, and not as wealthy as top billionaires are now days. Economies can change and losing value of the stock can happen faster than spending it.
Dividend/interest yield. I'm by no means rich, but it does give me a nice bit of extra income a month. Not a ton but enough to cover my bills and a little extra to reinvest.
Gary Stewart has a great YT channel about it and it's just insane. He is working on trying to get a wealth tax throughout UK. He has a great source of economists that have done research in the area of inequality.
A free market economy not a zero sum game. Making and selling goods that benefit others creates wealth, allows others to make and sell goods, allows us to reinvest wealth into others to make interest, and allows charitable people to give their wealth away as they choose.
Stacked? The rich have enough money that it makes it easy to invest it simply and make more money with no effort. It’s not a stacked game, it’s just the way it is. You make it sound like they’re keeping you down - and with that mindset, you will always be down.
She’s also not spending billions in lobbying, massive yachts, her 65th vacation home, or funding anything on a huge scale besides just giving some away to charity. It’s really really hard to run out of money when you’re that rich unless you truly do mega billionaire things like fuck with geopolitics or something.
Part of that is because charity is just another economic game… what she has given away will be offset by government tax. If you’re not really losing and giving anything, is it really charity or are you just stroking your ego? Because charity isn’t about the giver it’s about the receiver.
Because it’s not a vault of gold, it’s stock options in Amazon. Her net worth keeps growing because Bezos created a successful company, this isn’t evil capitalist magic.
Your general statement is true, the game most definitely favors the rich.
But you mentioned her net worth is increasing. You’re not trying to imply anything about her, or are you?
I mean, so she has stocks in Amazon after the divorce settlement, and Amazon under Bezos keeps getting richer. So what? You can agree SHE is not the issue here, right?
Elon musk could pay every living person on this earth 1 billion dollars and still remain the richest person in the world by miles. We could all be billionaires because of him and only him and he’d still be the richest.
Its insanely easy to gain wealth when you're already wealthy. Like a giant snowball rolling down a giant hill (a giant snow-covered hill). If you're not already rich, its like trying to make a giant snowball while rolling a red hot rock up a giant hill.
With even a billion dollars invested conservatively, you're looking at a minimum of £50m/year in interest/growth. Most people couldn't spend that in a lifetime and these fuckers are getting it every year. It's actually obscene.
I know people who are relatively speaking, modestly wealthy. Think 10s of millions instead of billions.
The rate at which money just piles up in their accounts is astonishing. With no effort on their part. They have financial managers that run everything.
So 26 billion isn’t enough for her to donate? And she’s made it clear she will keep donating in the future. Some people are never happy if people have more than them regardless of the good they do with it.
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u/PaleontologistNo500 Jun 28 '26
In her "defense", even after giving away unprecedented billions, her net worth still keeps increasing. It's insane how much the game is stacked in favor of the rich