this post was submitted on 17 May 2026
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No. I don't agree. I don't want a wealth tax. I want a wealth CAP. 1000x the median household income should be the maximum allowable fortune. That would be something like $80 million today.
I like that number because 1000x the median income is a good approximation for the largest honest fortune a person can earn by their own work. Imagine you had a married couple:
Even in such an extreme scenario, two people in a couple working highly paid jobs and saving and investing nearly everything they could. Even then, they would struggle to die with a fortune 1000x the median income. The only way you can earn more money than this is if you inherit it or if you arbitrage the labor of others. You need to start a business, be an executive, or have other means of scalping the surplus off of other people's labor.
1000x the median income is the largest honest fortune. It's the largest fortune you can earn through an ordinary salary and prudent individual investing. And it's well below the level where you have so much money you're becoming a threat to society. No one should have an individual fortune so large that they can sway nations through their own wealth. That is just too much power for one individual to have. We don't let people own nuclear bombs. We shouldn't let people be billionaires.
I don't want to tax billionaires. I want to eliminate them entirely. I would make all fortunes over 1000x the median income taxed at 100%. And if you secretly amass a larger fortune? There would be escalating criminal penalties. To the point where having a fortune 10x the legal limit would get you in as much legal trouble as if you tried to acquire your own nuclear bomb.
Equating mass wealth to weapons of mass destruction is not the metaphor I thought I'd be agreeing with today but it is extremely apt.
Yeah, it does make sense if you think about it. Imagine if Bezos or Musk decided to use their fortune to do as much damage to a city as possible. Musk could go to a city of hundreds of thousands and absolutely decimate if he wanted. Buy up all the big employers in town and shut them down. Fund local politicians who will screw things up as much as possible. Buy up residences by the thousand and pay to have them demolished. A billionaire like Musk or Bezos could, if they chose to, absolutely do as much damage to a city as a nuclear bomb. And countless people would die deaths of despair as a result.
Bezos could literally destroy a city if he wanted to. Let's say a city of 100k people has 33,000 residences. Let's say the average cost of buying and demolishing one is $500k. For about $16 billion, Bezos could literally buy up every residence in a city and tear them all down. Hell, they could afford to literally level a city that is home to millions of people, forcing the city to be abandoned.
One person should simply not have that much power. We don't let people own nuclear bomb, period. We don't say "only really ethical people get to own nukes." We don't say "only people with an expensive permit and license can own a nuke." No. There we recognize that no person, no matter how sane or moral, gets to own a nuke. Mr. Rogers wasn't allowed to own a nuke, even if he wanted one. Because even Mr. Rogers with a nuke isn't safe. There's always a chance of one individual going nuts and killing millions. There are simply levels of power that only large groups of people should have. Some things just should never be trusted to individuals.
i... just don't get the point of billionaires. what is the point of amassing so much wealth? you're never going to be able to spend all those billions in multiple lifetimes. Why does someone need more a few million to live comfortably? Just enough that you can buy ONE house, eat, pay your bills etc. Why the fuck does someone need a TRILLION FUCKING DOLLARS.
It's about power. It's just about power. Extreme wealth is a way for someone in democratic society to exercise the power of high office without actually having to convince the people to vote for you.
You hand me a few million? I'm never going to work again. I'll spend the rest of my days happily hanging with friends and family, pursuing my hobbies, and volunteering for causes I support. But then again, I'm not a psychopath bent on amassing as much power as possible.
sad but true. This is why people like us will never be billionaires or trillionaires. You don't get to that amount of wealth by being a good person. You get there by exploiting people and cheating and whatever. Fuck.