Current Events > AOC: No one ever makes a billion dollars. You take a billion dollars.

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/aoc-accuses-billionaires-exploiting-workers-paying-slave-wages-2020-1-1028842799

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez argues that people become billionaires only by exploiting workers and preying on vulnerable and less privileged people. "No one ever makes a billion dollars. You take a billion dollars," she told the author Ta-Nehisi Coates at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event this week. Ocasio-Cortez shared a NowThis clip of their discussion on Twitter. Coates, adopting the role of the hypothetical billionaire, asked the lawmaker to elaborate. "I'm Joe Billionaire," he said. "I made widgets. I sold those widgets. I made billions of dollars, you know, selling those widgets, making those widgets. Therefore, those billions of dollars are mine. Why am I the enemy of healthcare?" "Well, you didn't make those widgets, did you?" Ocasio-Cortez replied. "Because you employed thousands of people and paid them less than a living wage to make those widgets for you. "You didn't make those widgets. You sat on a couch while thousands of people were paid modern-day slave wages," she continued.

Billionaires make their money "off the backs" of undocumented immigrants, minorities, and single mothers who are all "literally dying because they can't afford to live," she added. Ocasio-Cortez said that capitalism inevitably creates billionaires while others starve, then called for a fairer, more advanced society, saying that we are "at the edges of an untenable system that is starting to crack." Democratic presidential candidates including Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have sounded the alarm on wealth inequality and unequal access to education, healthcare, and other critical services.



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She's an idiot. People like her want to punish people who are innovators, businessmen, and entrepreneurs.

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Eat Oprah!
Eat Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong!

Well yes, I suppose when people give it to you, your reaction would accurately be called taking it.

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she is correct

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I laughed out loud at the topic title. She knows how to play her crowd.

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Yet she has billionaires backing her

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Lebronwon posted...

Billionaires make their money "off the backs" of undocumented immigrants, minorities, and single mothers who are all "literally dying because they can't afford to live,"

WTF

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Awesome posted...

Yet she has billionaires backing her

but when a billionaire gives up to the campaign limit to her much smaller campaign its good and ok

but when one does it during a presidential campaign which is worth less than 0.01% of the money raised its terrible

She is such a fucking moron and ignorant. She sounds like she's perpetually stuck in edgy college freshman mode.

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Vyrulisse posted...

She is such a fucking moron and ignorant. She sounds like she's perpetually stuck in edgy college freshman mode.

so where is the lie

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AOC has a flat earther level understanding of economics.

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averagejoel posted...

she is correct

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Awesome posted...

Yet she has billionaires backing her

Name one.

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a lot people itt really love insulting her and not engaging at all with the ideas she presents. I wonder why

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jumi posted...

Name one.

Tom Steyer

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tennisdude818 posted...

AOC has a flat earther level understanding of economics.

averagejoel posted...

she is correct

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EndOfDiscOne posted...

Tom Steyer

$2800! Two years ago! Whoop-de-doo!

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She sounds like a jelly broke ass bitch

averagejoel posted...

she is correct

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jumi posted...

$2800! Two years ago! Whoop-de-doo!

So he doesn't count as a billionaire who backed AOC?

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jumi posted...

$2800! Two years ago! Whoop-de-doo!

https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2012/guide-to-political-donations.html


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i wouldnt know

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I feel like all my Amazon purchases have been consentual but I guess not.

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tbf, Tom Steyer is a billionaire class traitor.

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https://babylonbee.com/news/ocasio-cortez-severely-burned-after-accidentally-touching-book-on-basic-economics

Hairistotle posted...

doesn't she have a degree in economics

Ocasio-Cortez majored in international relations and economics at Boston University, graduating cum laude in 2011.
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Lebronwon posted...

You sat on a couch while thousands of people were paid modern-day slave wages," she continued.

Wow all we have to do is sit on a couch and we can make a billion dollar company? Wow let's all do that!

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EndOfDiscOne posted...

So he doesn't count as a billionaire who backed AOC?

Technically, but he didn't give some huge "Listen to me!" sum.

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Shes not wrong, but thats capitalism.

A Bezos or Gates will always reap the benefits of paying low wages for labor, which increases profits and thereby entices and rewards shareholders who contribute to the company.

The idea that youre going to convince a billionaire business owner to increase his or her wages, and thusly the cost of production, without hiking the price of each product or service is... unrealistic.

So, youd have to use governmental legislation to do so, which is a severe overreach.

Tough issue. No easy solutions.

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Economic illiteracy really should be shamed in the same way climate change denial is, she says stupid shit way too much.

Kolibri X posted...

I feel like all my Amazon purchases have been consentual but I guess not.

Does that include drunken amazon purchases?

Patchwork posted...

A Bezos or Gates will always reap the benefits of paying low wages for labor, which increases profits and thereby entices and rewards shareholders who contribute to the company.

Larger firms pay higher wages, you're as wrong as she is.

https://imgur.com/q3Ptxdh


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"I've been disproportionately rewarded for the work I've done,"

-literally bill gates

and he's one of the nicer/nicest ones.

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Patchwork posted...

Shes not wrong, but thats capitalism.

The problem with capitalism is the inequality. Like half the people have absolutely nothing.

Socialism is much more fair. ALL the people have nothing.

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DevsBro posted...

The problem with capitalism is the inequality. Like half the people have absolutely nothing.

Socialism is much more fair. ALL the people have nothing.

its actually a pretty good argument for socialism if you think these things are both true

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Balrog0 posted...

its actually a pretty good argument for socialism if you think these things are both true

That's just Decepticon logic, right there.
"If I can't have it, nobody can!"

Lol @ all the people in this topic who think that all you have to do to become a billionaire is work hard and pull up your bootstraps.

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DevsBro posted...

The problem with capitalism is the inequality. Like half the people have absolutely nothing.

Socialism is much more fair. ALL the people have nothing.

I chuckled

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Questionmarktarius posted...

That's just Decepticon logic, right there.
"If I can't have it, nobody can!"

its actually just human logic, which is what we're dealing with. we're social creatures

But and this is the important part they were acceptable back then because other median households accepted it.
John D. Rockefeller never had penicillin, sunscreen, or Advil. But you cant say a low-income American with Advil and sunscreen should feel better off than Rockefeller, because thats not how peoples heads work. People gauge their wellbeing relative to those around them. Everyone does. And goalposts move both ways: Sebastian Jungers book Tribes details the long history of comradery during shared disasters, like soldiers during war and neighbors during natural disasters. Hardship is more palatable when everyone around you is in the same boat.




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ClunkerSlim posted...

lets just look at Amazon here at home

yes lets look at a company that pays higher than average wages

justaguy3492 posted...

Lol @ all the people in this topic who think that all you have to do to become a billionaire is work hard and pull up your bootstraps.

Just working hard doesn't make you a billionaire.

justaguy3492 posted...

Lol @ all the people in this topic who think that all you have to do to become a billionaire is work hard and pull up your bootstraps.

the alternative to the above strawman isnt all billionaires stole what they have

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Yea ok

Why is it only billionaires on the hot seat?

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