Board 8 > Do people actually believe Elon Musk can solve world hunger?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Colegreen_c12 posted...

Tbh thinking a full time McDonald employee works as hard as Elon Musk is almost as laughable as thinking Elon Musk shouldn't pay more in taxes.

Shit youre right, they work harder.

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And here i thought BT was the biggest troll in this topic
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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Shit youre right, they work harder.

I'm not sure if you're serious or don't realize that elon musk is a literal workaholic and that working in a fast food resturant isn't that hard. (Source: I've done it)

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KingButz posted...

Most of Elon's money doesn't even come from his job, anyway. Most of it comes from owning shares of his companies.

This you?

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Colegreen_c12 posted...

I'm not sure if you're serious or don't realize that elon musk is a literal workaholic and that working in a fast food resturant isn't that hard. (Source: I've done it)

Ive also done it, and now I do IT and get paid a million times more and its way more fulfilling.

I consider the physical, emotional, and social toll that working at fast food requires way harder than my IT job where I have to think more. I also find my job fun, and I dont know anyone who finds fast food fun.

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Ive also done it, and now I do IT and get paid a million times more and its way more fulfilling.

I consider the physical, emotional, and social toll that working at fast food requires way harder than my IT job where I have to think more. I also find my job fun, and I dont know anyone who finds fast food fun.

I work in software development and definitely enjoyed it more at first but now I find it equally soulless. I would also say the average fast food worker works harder than me.

But I also know Elon Musk works way harder than I do. I'm not saying there aren't some other bigwig rich people that work way less hard than a fast food worker, but elon musk is a very poor example for this.

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Ive also done it, and now I do IT and get paid a million times more and its way more fulfilling.

I consider the physical, emotional, and social toll that working at fast food requires way harder than my IT job where I have to think more. I also find my job fun, and I dont know anyone who finds fast food fun.

I'm in a similar boat, but I went from retail to app/web development. While the latter is a much more skilled job, I'd consider the former "harder."

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SwiftyDC posted...

This is what people are missing. It's strictly profitable to yell at Musk to donate money to your favorite cause. It's practically free to tweet and post opinion pieces, and it actually works. There's multiple precedents for it.

That's it. It's not about morals or tax structures or anything. It's just straight up cost vs benefit.

The US 2021 budget is 35x higher than Musk's total wealth, which means it would take just 0.05% of the budget to solve hunger. If you only look at discretionary spending, it's 0.6%.

So why not ask the government to do it? There's literally a voting mechanism where we the people can force the government to do things.

Because popular democracy is way, way, WAY, less than 35x likely to put money towards hunger as Musk. The cost benefit equation doesn't balance. Elected officials and the 2 party system are way less influenceable - voting and campaigning is way less effective than a tweet at Musk.

Socialists all realize this, and thus greatly prioritize private billionaires and the media, over the people.

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Maybe elon will be the first billionaire to start turning in his excess wealth into immense social credit.

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Why don't you tell me exactly what Elon Musk's workload is and I'll tell you if it's harder than restaurant work.

PerfectChaosZ posted...

Why don't you tell me exactly what Elon Musk's workload is and I'll tell you if it's harder than restaurant work.

the dude works like 80+ hour weeks.

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How much of that time is him shitposting on twitter?

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Colegreen_c12 posted...

the dude works like 80+ hour weeks.

Restaurants can hit this

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Hey @Whiskey_Nick
It's over 2 AM here. I need to wake up in about 4 hours for work. But I can't sleep. I have been thinking about you calling me "a bad person" after what I said in this topic (or perhaps in general)

Look, I am not pretending. I know I am not "a good person". But does that automatically make me "bad"? is this a "black and white" type of thing?
I have never really thought of myself as being a bad person so...that kinda sucks to read it.
Can you please explain to me why you think that of me?

I am not going to fight you. I am too tired for this. Just please explain to me so I can understand

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Good is a point of view Nanis.

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All these extreme example are taking the focus away from the point at hand. All the tax loopholes that exist out there allow millionaires to pay as much in taxes as I do. I'm not talking about percentages, I'm talking about actual dollar value. It's ridiculous. The fair share argument isn't about the rich paying more because they have more money, it's about the rich finally contributing what they should have always been contributing.

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Colegreen_c12 posted...

the dude works like 80+ hour weeks.

Doing what

guffguy89 posted...

All these extreme example are taking the focus away from the point at hand. All the tax loopholes that exist out there allow millionaires to pay as much in taxes as I do. I'm not talking about percentages, I'm talking about actual dollar value. It's ridiculous. The fair share argument isn't about the rich paying more because they have more money, it's about the rich finally contributing what they should have always been contributing.

Then why do you hate the millionaires instead of hating those loopholes?
As far as I know what they do is legal, isn't it?

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I am really wondering, and please be honest with yourself -
If you had a way to pay less tax but still be totally legal, wouldn't you? or would you say "No! I must pay my share to society!"?

I will give a example I thought of
A few years ago I imported a US 3DS. I was then asked to pick a country and a state.
I searched online and read that some states do not require paying tax. So I picked it. Now granted I don't live in the US and I don't need to pay taxes, and I wasn't really "lying" when I picked the region because none of the options were right for me (as it is a US 3DS, no Asia/Europe countries to choose from)

But let's assume I WAS a US citizen. I don't know if it's considered tax evasion (it probably is), but if it isn't, would you not do it? would you pay extra $3 for every purchase if you can avoid it?

Is this why Whiskey_Nick called me a bad person?

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Nanis23 posted...

If you had a way to pay less tax but still be totally legal, wouldn't you?

if i were a millionaire and therefore money didn't matter to me at all, hell no.

i care way too little about money and i'm way too lazy to figure out how tax loopholes work.

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People that think working in a restaurant is somehow "harder" than being an executive at a company have clearly never worked in a position with any semblance of responsibility beyond "make sure these burgers are flipped". Sure being on your feet for a shift is more physically demanding, your job is over as soon as you clock out, and you can go do drugs with the rest of the kitchen staff. As CEO of one of the biggest companies in the world, the amount of absolute bullshit you have to deal with requires you to be constantly around, unless you've done a really good job of having competent directors/managers, and have a culture of enabling people to make decisions.

If someone is bitching about how "lazy" CEOs are, it's very clear to me that their opinion is null and void as their life experience is severely lacking.

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Nanis23 posted...

Then why do you hate the millionaires instead of hating those loopholes?
As far as I know what they do is legal, isn't it?

Because the millionaries use their vast excess of money to pay the politicians in charge of our lives to make these loopholes and keep them open to become ever richer.

BlAcK TuRtLe posted...

People that think working in a restaurant is somehow "harder" than being an executive at a company have clearly never worked in a position with any semblance of responsibility beyond "make sure these burgers are flipped". Sure being on your feet for a shift is more physically demanding, your job is over as soon as you clock out, and you can go do drugs with the rest of the kitchen staff. As CEO of one of the biggest companies in the world, the amount of absolute bullshit you have to deal with requires you to be constantly around, unless you've done a really good job of having competent directors/managers, and have a culture of enabling people to make decisions.

If someone is bitching about how "lazy" CEOs are, it's very clear to me that their opinion is null and void as their life experience is severely lacking.

If you don't think Elon Musk is doing drugs...

I never said he wasn't. I don't know if he is or if he isn't (when he smoked weed on the Joe Rogan podcast he seemed like he hadn't done it much), but his drug use clearly doesn't impact his ability to run a company if he does. But excellent attempt at a straw man argument there.

I was more referring to the (absolutely true) fact that a lot of people working in restaurants hang out and get high after their shift, and I know this because I too worked in the service industry when I was in high school/university.

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PerfectChaosZ posted...

Because the millionaries use their vast excess of money to pay the politicians in charge of our lives to make these loopholes and keep them open to become ever richer.

You seem to be talking out of your ass here. One of my closest friends is a tax accountant at a big 4 firm, most loopholes in tax law were not maliciously added to tax law, they were just situations that noone figured out until after the rules were made and put into effect. Think of it like speedrunning video games, people are still finding new bugs and exploits in 30 year old video games today. Then when you have a situation where large companies are exploiting the loopholes, the political issue that comes up is that plugging the holes risks pissing them off and having them take their money elsewhere. As long as the option exists for companies to move to more favourable tax havens, closing every single loophole becomes political suicide. Which is why tax law changes are usually done at a slower pace.

Even then, a lot of the things that get reported (THIS COMPANY PAID NO TAXES!) is just misconstrued in a lot of cases. For instance, if a company takes advantages of tax breaks, those tax breaks were introduced for a reason, to solve some other problem (attracting businesses to regions with high unemployement, getting companies to implement environmental controls in return for tax breaks (which cuts out the middleman of the government having to pay directly for those changes) etc. etc.)

Like almost anything you see talked about by uneducated people on the internet, it should require critical thinking before you continue to spew it further

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https://youtu.be/6lB6QOMUffE

Good video.

inb4 someone brings up Hasans house

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BlAcK TuRtLe posted...

Like almost anything you see talked about by uneducated people on the internet, it should require critical thinking before you continue to spew it further

Tantalizingly close to being self-aware

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BlAcK TuRtLe posted...

unless you've done a really good job of having competent directors/managers, and have a culture of enabling people to make decisions.

Ok so you do understand how rich CEOs don't actually work as much as workers, you're just being contrarian for no reason as usual

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How do you measure "work"? Because to me, writing software in a flow state for 2-3 hours is far more exhausting than an 8 hour shift flipping burgers. Only people who have worked menial jobs think that they have the "toughest jobs on the planet". If it was someone like say, a construction worker, or a roofer that actually puts a very heavy strain on their bodies, I would say that in a given day they work "harder" than a manager/CEO, but again, they finish their shift and they go home whereas executives rarely get downtime.

But to claim that the average McDonalds/Wal Mart employee has a "hard" job is simply laughable, and again is only something that you would think if you have only ever worked those types of jobs.

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

https://youtu.be/6lB6QOMUffE

Good video.

inb4 someone brings up Hasans house

I got about 5 minutes in before his constant whining and stopping to address every idiot in his twitch chat got to me. What is the point he's trying to prove? What I see here is another internet moron that doesn't understand how market valuation does not translate 1:1 to cash flow. And it looks like this is that champagne Twitch socialist that everyone was bitching about when he bought a multi-million dollar mansion a couple months ago.

So we have yet another situation where an uneducated, inexperienced person is literally inventing "facts" out of his ass to pander to his audience, except this time he's using his platform to convince unemployed14 year olds to donate to him by taking advantage of their still developing brains.

If you don't see Tesla's current market valuation as complete garbage that will correct itself harshly in the near future, I have some NFTs and Cryptocurrency to sell you

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BlAcK TuRtLe posted...

If you don't see Tesla's current market valuation as complete garbage that will correct itself harshly in the near future

I have said this like 5 times in the past two years and it didn't happen

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BlAcK TuRtLe posted...

Because to me, writing software in a flow state for 2-3 hours is far more exhausting than an 8 hour shift flipping burgers.

That's the opposite of flow state, you're doing something really wrong or are shit at it. Good on you though, it's a great career and can get better (though I know some 50 yr olds who never got better).

But sure, there's a lot in software work that is more exhausting than flipping burgers, which is relatively chill. But there's also a lot in retail that's way more exhausting, like all the customer service. That's the same kind of thing that's exhausting in software, and there's way more of that in retail.

CEOs, like you explained, hire people to do all that exhausting AND non-exhausting work. All they need to do is high level direction setting, and putting out fires. Those are super high value tasks, but obviously not a lot of work at all. The extent they do actual work, like Musk, is entirely voluntary.

You do agree with all of this, you're just conflating work with value. That's a really common mistake, but you should stop it.

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BT probably thinks pointy-haired boss from dilbert is a misunderstood genius who works his ass off

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Mr Lasastryke posted...

BT probably thinks pointy-haired boss from dilbert is a misunderstood genius who works his ass off

The Dilbert guy is a Trump supporter so this might be canon tbh

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BlAcK TuRtLe posted...

You seem to be talking out of your ass here. One of my closest friends is a tax accountant at a big 4 firm, most loopholes in tax law were not maliciously added to tax law, they were just situations that noone figured out until after the rules were made and put into effect. Think of it like speedrunning video games, people are still finding new bugs and exploits in 30 year old video games today. Then when you have a situation where large companies are exploiting the loopholes, the political issue that comes up is that plugging the holes risks pissing them off and having them take their money elsewhere. As long as the option exists for companies to move to more favourable tax havens, closing every single loophole becomes political suicide. Which is why tax law changes are usually done at a slower pace.

Even then, a lot of the things that get reported (THIS COMPANY PAID NO TAXES!) is just misconstrued in a lot of cases. For instance, if a company takes advantages of tax breaks, those tax breaks were introduced for a reason, to solve some other problem (attracting businesses to regions with high unemployement, getting companies to implement environmental controls in return for tax breaks (which cuts out the middleman of the government having to pay directly for those changes) etc. etc.)

Like almost anything you see talked about by uneducated people on the internet, it should require critical thinking before you continue to spew it further

So if the rich are taking advantage of various tax loopholes to pay little or no taxes, and those loopholes themselves are very difficult to plug up, would it not make sense then to simply raise the taxes on the rich to offset the loopholes they are using? Or is it more fair to just let them continue paying as much in taxes (or less) as someone who makes $50k a year?

My point is, the Right often paints this picture that we want to somehow punish rich people for making money. We just want them to start paying somewhere closer to what they should be contributing in taxes. As a middle class person who gets 20-25% of my income taken in taxes, I don't think that's such an outlandish ask.

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Some days I think it would be easier to just remove all the tax benefits/savings/breaks and just have the tax brackets. I'd even lower the percentage in each bracket slightly to get more people on board because in the long run we'd get more money.

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guffguy89 posted...

would it not make sense then to simply raise the taxes on the rich to offset the loopholes they are using

No, because it's WAY easier to just plug up the loopholes. Why do you think your new law is immune to loopholes? It's not. The old law came about the same way as the new one, and it has the same perverse influences that lead to the loopholes. So your strategy will literally create new loopholes that make the rich richer. This is how we got to where we are now. I don't get why you think doing the same thing over and over again will fix it.

The only option to fix the loopholes is to actually fix the loopholes. Don't buy your crony congressmen's excuses that it's not possible.

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foolm0r0n posted...

No, because it's WAY easier to just plug up the loopholes. Why do you think your new law is immune to loopholes? It's not. The old law came about the same way as the new one, and it has the same perverse influences that lead to the loopholes. So your strategy will literally create new loopholes that make the rich richer. This is how we got to where we are now. I don't get why you think doing the same thing over and over again will fix it.

The only option to fix the loopholes is to actually fix the loopholes. Don't buy your crony congressmen's excuses that it's not possible.

I agree with this in theory, but I was thinking of what the more realistic thing to happen would be. At least we hear the topic of raising taxes floating around Washington....when was the last time you heard anything about closing loopholes? Lobbyists got that thing locked down so hard I don't know if any meaningful changes will come in that direction any time soon.

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I hear it a lot from the politicians I like. But their parties do love that excuse that it's not realistic, and they love that constituents like you believe that. There's been rising popularity in the real solutions recently though. Closed loopholes were in the original bill infrastructure bill, and they almost made it.

But even so, why are you support shit just because it's easier to pass? That's the horrible "something is better than nothing" that got us here.

Ultimately it's the same thing we've been talking about here - corps are paying $X millions in slightly raised taxes in order to avoid $10X losses in closed loopholes. And the taxes disproportionally hurt their competition, so they end up even more on top. It's such a wrong direction to go in and be satisfied.

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foolm0r0n posted...

And the taxes disproportionally hurt their competition, so they end up even more on top. It's such a wrong direction to go in and be satisfied.

This is the most important takeaway. Half baked solutions like this are actually worse than doing nothing.

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https://twitter.com/goodpoliticguy/status/1457480065349033988?s=21

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If a genie showed up and granted me a single wish, it would probably be to instantly educate all the ignorant people on the internet as to what "net worth" means, and why it is an almost completely meaningless number that only exists for Twitter/Reddit "socialists" to obsess over.

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

https://twitter.com/goodpoliticguy/status/1457480065349033988?s=21

TSLA went 12x in that same time period, so his net worth also went 12x. Everyone who held TSLA in that time period also went 12x. This is literally the least wrong thing about his wealth, out of all the things you could complain about...

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I think it's just an example of how the rich get richer, and the people spending everything to keep their families alive just fall further behind

I don't hate the players, I hate the game

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Noone is "spending everything to keep their families alive". People on welfare and social assistance are able to afford smart phones/big screen TVs etc. Are they living a comfortable life? No, but they are not "failing to survive". And if someone wants to be lazy their entire lives, the bare minimum is all they should be getting from the people contributing to society.

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Do you actually know anyone on welfare or do you just make these people up
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banananor posted...

I think it's just an example of how the rich get richer, and the people spending everything to keep their families alive just fall further behind

I don't hate the players, I hate the game

Around 50% of people (maybe more now?) own stocks and could have chosen to put all their savings into TSLA. Of course that would've been a stupidly risky decision, but it's how Musk made that money.

You're attacking the 50% to try to hit the 0.01%. It's so dumb and typical of modern liberalism.

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foolm0r0n posted...

Around 50% of people (maybe more now?) own stocks and could have chosen to put all their savings into TSLA. Of course that would've been a stupidly risky decision, but it's how Musk made that money.

You're attacking the 50% to try to hit the 0.01%. It's so dumb and typical of modern liberalism.

The logic for why this is an issue is similar to why sales taxes are regressive (two sides of the same coin really). Everybody's stock gets buoyed 12x, and yet the rich still get richer at a much greater rate than everybody else

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Dumb question time: Why is Tesla's value worth so much that Musk is possibly the wealthiest person on Earth? It's obviously a successful company, but I don't get why its market cap is so ridiculously high.
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Xeybozn posted...

Dumb question time: Why is Tesla's value worth so much that Musk is possibly the wealthiest person on Earth? It's obviously a successful company, but I don't get why its market cap is so ridiculously high.

It's worth whatever investors think its worth.

I think its crazily overpriced but it's investors disagree. They are more invested as a looking forward thing though, they think its going to completely dominate the industry in a couple years basically.

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