• BurgerPunk [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    250k is a lot of money. It was more even more money in the 90s. Its an exceptionally large amount of money to recieve for free straight from your parents.

    People don't become billionaires from working. They become billionaires by taking profit from the surplus value of other peoples work.

    But you believe in a propagandized version of capitaliam where everyone could equally become a billionaire, its a meritocracy, you're all jealous and lazy of our deserving overlords bootlicker bootlicker bootlicker bootlicker bootlicker bootlicker bootlicker

      • GnastyGnuts [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        250K isn't that much money. Maybe to you but to the average person it isn't.

        Completely out-of-touch.

      • Tomboys_are_Cute [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        1 year ago

        $250,000 isn't a lot of money to the average person

        Thats literally 5-6x the median annual income what the hell are you smoking. That is a life changing amount of money to most of the country.

        they didn't take the profit from anyone

        They took that profit from the people working there. Profit is the difference between expenses and income. In order to turn a profit companies cannot pay workers what their work earns the company, there has to be a difference. In economic parlance this difference is referred to as surplus value being generated by the workers for the company. If workers were paid what they were worth then the profit margin of that company would be 0% but those people would all be paid more than they are now. Whether you think the workers are entitled to the full value of what they create is an ideological determination that I will judge you for.

      • commiecapybara [he/him, e/em/eir]
        ·
        1 year ago

        The average US worker has a salary of $46,800 (in 2018) before taxes. Assuming they saved everything and spent nothing, it would take over 5 years for them to make 250k. Again, this is before taxes, and without spending anything. For the vast majority of people, 250k is a lot of money.

        Assuming they saved everything and spent nothing, the average worker would have to work the entire length of all human history in order to earn a billion dollars. If they were to make as much money as Jeff Bezos, they would have to work for 2.8 million years.

        Assuming you earned a million dollars every year, it would take 1000 years to earn your first billion dollars.

        It's not possible to become a billionaire simply through working, as humans do not live that long.

          • commiecapybara [he/him, e/em/eir]
            ·
            1 year ago

            Exactly. So you agree that it's impossible to earn and save a billion dollars just by working hard. It requires either exploiting your workers by stealing their surplus value, or by using the market by short-selling, using hedge funds, trading through illegal offshore numbered accounts, derivatives, etc.

            • Tachanka [comrade/them]
              ·
              1 year ago

              or by using the market by short-selling, using hedge funds, trading through illegal offshore numbered accounts, derivatives, etc.

              Which is also just stealing surplus value by proxy, since return on investment is simply a share of the company's profits, which is itself just surplus value, or unpaid labor.

              • UnicodeHamSic [he/him]
                ·
                1 year ago

                If I don't take what my boss offers I will starve to death and die. That is not what I would consider a strong bargaining position. I can go to the other company that I could work at but they both work together to keep wages low. I have no power to improve my status because the system is rigged against me and every worker like me

                  • UnicodeHamSic [he/him]
                    ·
                    1 year ago

                    So you are saying that as black people on average don't earn as much as white people they just aren't as good as them? It is their fault for the way the system treats them? I would hope that is obvious ridiculous to you. However the average person has just as much control over the capitalist system as black people have over the police state.

              • rogrodre [none/use name]
                ·
                1 year ago

                When you're old enough to work you'll sell it to whoever you can at whatever price they offer and you'll be lucky to get annual raises that match inflation.

      • aebletrae [she/her]
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        If wealth were actually distributed in the US equally that might be true, but as it is it's more than double what most Americans have, even ignoring inflation.

        The average net worth of all American families was $746,820, according to the Federal Reserve’s 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances, while the median figure was $121,760.

        The Average Net Worth Of Americans—By Age, Education And Ethnicity

      • eatmyass
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        deleted by creator

        • brain_in_a_box [he/him]
          ·
          1 year ago

          Their wealth is based on the value of the company which is truly arbitrary

          And this was supposed to be an argument for billionaires deserving their wealth?