• ByteJunk@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        74
        arrow-down
        8
        ·
        4 days ago

        Yep. A single billionaire funding a war effort is abhorrent.

        This one happens to be on the right side, but there’s absolutely no guarantee that his will be the case for any of these fucking psychopaths.who horde wealth. They all need to go.

        • Lumiluz@slrpnk.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          28
          arrow-down
          4
          ·
          4 days ago

          Counterpoint - under the current administration, paying taxes might help Russia more

          • ammonium@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            31
            ·
            4 days ago

            But would the current administration be the current administration without wealth hoarding psychopaths?

            • Lumiluz@slrpnk.net
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              3 days ago

              It wouldn’t, but I think that ship has sailed already. I don’t see how your current governmental structure would ever fix that. It’s been a problem since citizens united, if not before

              • ByteJunk@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                3 days ago

                It has always been up to the people to establish governmental structure. History provides the examples, mon frére.

        • ReluctantMuskrat@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          3 days ago

          Except he’s not funding a war, he’s funding the defense of a nation fighting for freedom and its right to exist.

          Ukraine didn’t get in this war as a pissing match with Russia. It was wrongly attacked and is a democracy defending itself. It’s had its children kidnapped and its civilians targeted. It will cease to exist if it loses. We don’t have a greedy capitalist funding an unjust war for profit as you’re trying to suggest. Helping Ukraine is the right thing to do. Refusing to help them will simply result in Europe fighting a better-resourced Russia later.

          • ByteJunk@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            3 days ago

            We don’t have a greedy capitalist funding an unjust war for profit as you’re trying to suggest.

            Yet.

            • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              3 days ago

              If there’s one thing billionaires are known for, it is, of course, giving billions to a war effort with absolutely zero strings attached. Totally.

              • ByteJunk@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                3
                ·
                3 days ago

                I’m not arguing that these funds shouldn’t go to Ukraine. I’m arguing that no single individual should ever be allowed to have so much money that they are able to do this. They all need to be cut down to size ASAP.

        • Bogus007@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          9
          ·
          4 days ago

          Do you say the same thing about Russian billionaires funding the war against Ukraine?

            • Bogus007@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              13
              ·
              3 days ago

              Are you ByteJunk? Is ByteJunk a name for a group of people or why do you say « they »?

              • dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                3
                ·
                3 days ago

                No. I am dependencyInjection.

                I said they, as I was referencing ByteJunk and what they literally said (typed, if you want to be a pedant) in the comment you replied to.

                Are you happy now? Do you need anything else blatantly obvious to be clarified for you?

                • humorlessrepost@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  3 days ago

                  Bogus is just doing that new anti-trans-panic performance the nazis do now where they pretend English hasn’t used they/them for unspecified gender for hundreds of years. She’s a troll.

                  • dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    1
                    ·
                    3 days ago

                    Yeah it’s an odd one. You could say my friend Bob is also going and they will meet you in the reception.

                    Perfectly normal way of speaking and nothing to do with transgender stuff.

                  • Bogus007@lemm.ee
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    1
                    arrow-down
                    1
                    ·
                    3 days ago

                    Please, correct it you want to say, then ‘it’ say, you must 😂

                • Bogus007@lemm.ee
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  arrow-down
                  4
                  ·
                  3 days ago

                  Ah, ByteJunk, one person it is not, many, it is. Got it. But how they decide what to comment, hmm? Take much time, it must 😂

                  • ByteJunk@lemmy.world
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    1
                    ·
                    3 days ago

                    Ideas transcend people.

                    Written language transcends you.

                    I see dependencyInjection clearly would have better used his time elsewhere, so let’s learn from his endeavours and tag you appropriately, so we can avoid future waste.

          • barsoap@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            3 days ago

            There’s really no such thing as “Russian billionaires”, at least not in the western sense. Also not in the oligarch sense, oligarchy implies rule by few, that’s not the case in Russia, it’s an autocracy, rule by one: There’s the Tsar and he doeth bequeath wealth upon loyal viceroys in the form of fiefdoms to exploit. The Tsar giveth, and the Tsar taketh away. Shit hasn’t changed since the times of the Russian Empire but this time around it’s less about territories and the people on it but factories and industries.

            • Bogus007@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              3 days ago

              Certainly, the Russian system was and is totally a hierarchical system based on- like everywhere - on power and influence (both intermingle). But this does not exclude that there are very wealthy people in Russia who are funding the war, being it because they are forced to (I hardly believe) or because they make profit out of it. Don’t you think so?

              • barsoap@lemm.ee
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                3 days ago

                The war is funded partly by the taxpayer, partly by inflation. The viceroys might be making less of a profit right now as they can’t engage in their usual level of grift but Putin doesn’t, and isn’t going to, touch their villas and fancy cars.

                  • barsoap@lemm.ee
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    1
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    2 days ago

                    That’s not contradicting anything I said, on the contrary it’s contradicting your assertion that those people would be funding the war. Their wealth is largely unaffected, still making profits (even if a bit lower) because they’re still fulfilling their purpose as loyal viceroys.

                    Like, usually they could e.g. produce ballistic vests out of cardboard, bill the army full price for the things, and pocket the difference. That doesn’t fly any more but that doesn’t mean that suddenly their businesses are unprofitable.

                    Among kremlinologists there’s generally an acknowledgement that the viceroys aren’t exactly thrilled about the war because it’s cutting into their profits and they’re not seeing any point in it, OTOH they’re also not willing to bite the hand that feeds them. Few have armies large enough to march on Moscow, none have armies large enough to face down the actual one, and none of them wants to end like Prigozhin. They also don’t like not being able to travel to Monaco. They’re assholes captured between a rock and a hard place. Normal Russian circumstances, one might say.

          • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            9
            arrow-down
            23
            ·
            3 days ago

            It’s easy to say the right things when you know you’re never going to be held accountable for your words.

              • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                10
                arrow-down
                9
                ·
                3 days ago

                Yes. If we lived in another reality, and there was a true progressive about to pass a 100% tax on all wealth over a billion dollars, Warren would be showing is true colors very, very quickly. It’s easy to say the right thing on this because he knows he’ll never have to pay a dime more than he does right now.

                He’s a dragon among 700 or so other dragons sitting on unimaginable wealth that he will never spend in his lifetime. He deserves nothing but disrespect.

                • gamer@lemm.ee
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  6
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  3 days ago

                  about to pass a 100% tax on all wealth over a billion dollars

                  Here’s the first sentence of that article that you didn’t read:

                  A 70% marginal tax rate. A 77% estate tax. A 3% tax on every dollar over $1 billion of net worth.

                  • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    2
                    arrow-down
                    1
                    ·
                    3 days ago

                    It doesn’t matter.

                    He can say anything, anything at all, because he knows tax laws are never going to change.

                    His words are completely inconsequential apart from serving as good PR.

                    ABAB

                • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  7
                  arrow-down
                  2
                  ·
                  3 days ago

                  It’s easy to say the right thing on this because he knows he’ll never have to pay a dime more than he does right now.

                  And it’s easy to make sweeping statements based purely on hypotheticals and your own assumptions. In our reality, he’s one of the biggest advocates for raising his own taxes.

    • index@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      3 days ago

      They shouldn’t exist to begin with, workers should get a bigger share and products should be cheaper. Taxes money aren’t necessarily used for good especially when you have a bunch of fascists at the government.