Selected Society: The 25 Wealthiest Dynasties On The Planet Control $1.4 trillion

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

13 minutes ago, NickW said:

I didn't argue that wasn't the case. I am in favour of reasonably fair progressive taxes 

On trusts my view is that Governments should limit the amount that can go into trusts to avoid these type of avoidance schemes to avoid income or inhertance taxes. I also have my doubts about charitable contributions having unlimited tax relief. 

In the UK I have always found it amusing that Eton (school for the rich elites) has charitable status - that's right you can leave a shed load of money to a school for the elite and get tax relief / avoid income tax. 

On the second point in bold surely dividends on shares are taxed as income unless in some form of tax shelter (in the UK its ISA's) 

Berkshire doesn't pay dividends. In the US dividends are taxed as ordinary income. 

I definitely agree on these mega trusts. As for schools, look at Harvard and Yale with their multi-billion dollar endowments. Used to be, you could give one of them $100 million and they'd name a building after you. Now that won't even get you a parking space

[NickW + 2,714]

2 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

Berkshire doesn't pay dividends. In the US dividends are taxed as ordinary income. 

I definitely agree on these mega trusts. As for schools, look at Harvard and Yale with their multi-billion dollar endowments. Used to be, you could give one of them $100 million and they'd name a building after you. Now that won't even get you a parking space

Ok - cheers. Same as the UK although you can shelter 20K a year in ISA's which is what I have done with my proceeds from Saudi! 

[Michael Sanches + 187]

So many people don't understand how brutal the wealth inequality is in the US. There are actually people who have to survive with only 25" flat screen TV's. These same victims have to use only one toilet at a time while rich people can spread their butts over 2, 3, even 4 toilets at the same time in their house. Life is so unfair!

[Boat + 1,325]

On 9/2/2019 at 5:48 PM, Pavel said:

Not enough to pay off National debt😂

Yea like the around 450 billion per year that is not paid in taxes by mainly the rich and ends up in those off shore bank accounts. The Republican answer to this problem was to cut money from the investigative arm of the IRS. Brilliant!

Then let’s see, multiple Republican presidents cutting taxes and spending more. Brilliant! Seems at the end of every tax break spending there is a crash. Brilliant! Ramp up fear and war so beef up that military. Brilliant! Only 700 billion per year or so before actual conflict. 

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

And what section of the wealth spectrum pays the lion’s share of taxes? Hint: It is not the poor or middle class.

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

7 minutes ago, Boat said:

Yea like the around 450 billion per year that is not paid in taxes by mainly the rich and ends up in those off shore bank accounts. The Republican answer to this problem was to cut money from the investigative arm of the IRS. Brilliant!

Then let’s see, multiple Republican presidents cutting taxes and spending more. Brilliant! Seems at the end of every tax break spending there is a crash. Brilliant! Ramp up fear and war so beef up that military. Brilliant! Only 700 billion per year or so before actual conflict. 

Are you suggesting ramping up military spending AFTER ‘actual conflict’? That didn’t work out too well in WW2.

The US is the number one target of terrorism, when should we ramp up?

[Boat + 1,325]

11 minutes ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Are you suggesting ramping up military spending AFTER ‘actual conflict’? That didn’t work out too well in WW2.

The US is the number one target of terrorism, when should we ramp up?

So if the worlds largest military has made the US the #1 target of terrorism what would a small military do? Have success in Afghanistan? Iran? Lynia? Syria? Ukraine? Crimea? Venezuela? Cuba? Russia? N Korea? Would we win the war on drugs? Police would stop killing black kids?  

Maybe less intervention by a US government should be let’s say a 10 year experiment. 

 

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

11 minutes ago, Boat said:

So if the worlds largest military has made the US the #1 target of terrorism what would a small military do? Have success in Afghanistan? Iran? Lynia? Syria? Ukraine? Crimea? Venezuela? Cuba? Russia? N Korea? Would we win the war on drugs? Police would stop killing black kids?  

Maybe less intervention by a US government should be let’s say a 10 year experiment. 

 

Are you making the assumption that having the world’s most powerful ( not largest) military made the US the number one target of terrorism?

I don’t remember the US being involved in most of those countries mentioned prior to 9/11.

Are you further suggesting that a large military is somehow responsible for black youth getting shot by law enforcement? There is no logic to this assumption.

Does less intervention include less financial aid to the rest of the world and no intervention during natural disasters?

[Boat + 1,325]

Who knows what large means to you but 8 of the 9 nuclear countries could kill the world over multiple times. Manpower means little in a world of the soon to be hypersonic missile capabilities which will make conventional militaries obsolete in the traditional sense. The US can’t stop the transition. Traditional security will be gone and many more countries will have this capability.

Your memory can be updated by a simple google of US intervention since WWII. Doesn’t matter if you think any of those actions were justified or not. The saying goes one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter. 

If you think terrorism is caused by helping with natural disasters then your talking Republican which I don’t comprehend well. Lol 

Maybe we should leave the Muslims to the Asians, Russians and the Chinese since history shows how poor our military style of diplomacy has failed. 

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

2 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

I don’t remember the US being involved in most of those countries mentioned prior to 9/11.

Terrorism is borderless, but it is very well documented that Osama Bin Laden got a taste for fighting in Afghanistan in the 80s. 

2 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Are you further suggesting that a large military is somehow responsible for black youth getting shot by law enforcement?

I think a way to look at it could : More money for prevention saves money for policing in the longterm... 

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

Wasn’t Bin Laden fighting the RUSSIANS in Afghanistan in the 80’s?

More money for the prevention of WHAT?

Your comments are very vague and obtuse.

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

1 hour ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Wasn’t Bin Laden fighting the RUSSIANS in Afghanistan in the 80’s?

who funded the Muhajedins ? That is involvement... 

1 hour ago, Douglas Buckland said:

More money for the prevention of WHAT?

Drug abuse, social problems that lead to crime etc. 

 

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

And if we had not supported the mujahaden, then what? Are you saying you supported the Russian occupation of Afghanistan? 

Getting back on topic, how did SUPPORTING the mujahaden make the US a target for terrorism? That is counter- intuitive.

So much money has been thrown into the programs over the years with absolutely no benefit. People need to take responsibility for their own actions. Anybody with an IQ higher than a Fruit Loop knows that getting addicted to drugs is a dead end and social programs are scammed continuously. What other social ills are you referring to?

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

7 minutes ago, Douglas Buckland said:

And if we had not supported the mujahaden, then what?

Maybe Osama Bin Laden would never have evolved into a terrorist - we will never know. 

7 minutes ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Are you saying you supported the Russian occupation of Afghanistan? 

No. I am saying that intervening has consequences. Sometimes consequences we can't see.

7 minutes ago, Douglas Buckland said:

So much money has been thrown into the programs over the years with absolutely no benefit. People need to take responsibility for their own actions. Anybody with an IQ higher than a Fruit Loop knows that getting addicted to drugs is a dead end and social programs are scammed continuously. What other social ills are you referring to?

Switzland prevent a lot of drug crime by giving drug addicts drugs. It may sound counter- intuitive but it works. 

https://www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/2019/01/21/switzerland-couldnt-stop-drug-users-so-it-started-supporting-them/

Can we agree to disagree? 

Edited September 5, 2019 by Rasmus Jorgensen

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

2 minutes ago, Rasmus Jorgensen said:

Maybe Osama Bin Laden would never have evolved into a terrorist - we will never know. 

No. I am saying that intervening has consequences. Sometimes consequences we can't see.

Switzland prevent a lot of drug crime by giving drug addicts. It may sound counter- intuitive but it works. 

Can we agree to disagree? 

If we did not intervene, there is a damn good chance that Afghanistan would have remained under the Russian thumb until the Soviet Union collapsed.

Osama was Wahhabi, we are the Great Satan, he would have attacked us at some point regardless.

Switzerland has extremely high taxes, which is how they can afford their social programs. You are falling into the trap of expecting what works for one culture/nationality will automatically transfer to another.

Personally I do not see where rewarding bad habits and choices (giving drugs to addicts) is acceptable and I definitely do not want my tax dollars paying for someones drug happy regardless of how warm and fuzzy that makes some people feel.

That said, we’ll just agree to disagre. 

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

7 minutes ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Switzerland has extremely high taxes, which is how they can afford their social programs.

Switzerland has some of lowest taxes in Europe. Their overall tax levels are comparable to the US https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Switzerland/United-States/Economy/Tax

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

17 minutes ago, Rasmus Jorgensen said:

Switzerland has some of lowest taxes in Europe. Their overall tax levels are comparable to the US https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Switzerland/United-States/Economy/Tax

Interesting. I’d be curious to know how they fund their social programs if not with tax money.

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

2 minutes ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Interesting. I’d be curious to know how they fund their social programs if not with tax money.

it is funded through tax - the point is just that prevention in the longterm is much cheaper than punishment. 

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

3 minutes ago, Rasmus Jorgensen said:

it is funded through tax - the point is just that prevention in the longterm is much cheaper than punishment. 

But you are still rewarding bad habits and personal decisions. If you are giving out free methadone (?) to lessen withdrawals, this is NOT prevention UNLESS you can actually prove that the addict gets off his addiction AND does not remain a burden on society. It is my understanding that many of these addicts will use the free methadone to reduce the withdrawal symptoms UNTIL they can score the real deal again.

Are there any realistic statistics showing how many of these addicts recover, do not become addicted to the substitute and become viable members of society?

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

53 minutes ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Personally I do not see where rewarding bad habits and choices (giving drugs to addicts) is acceptable and I definitely do not want my tax dollars paying for someones drug happy regardless of how warm and fuzzy that makes some people feel.

Here's the thing:  there is this irreducible percentage in any society that are predisposed to being drug addicts.  That number is around 5%.  Mostly, the addiction is to alcohol.  If the genetic makeup of the population is site-specific, then that addiction number may be higher;  Ireland comes to mind, as does Russia.  In the past, societies have attempted to combat alcoholism by levying ever-higher excise taxes on it.  What that does is push the poorer elements to switch over to narcotic substances, which then is supplied untaxed by criminal gangs.  So, as we found out here in the USA during the time of Elliott Ness, attempting to shut down the flow of addicting substances merely enhanced the earnings of the criminal gangs, and thus pushed more crime and street crime onto the greater society to fund the drugs and the addictions, which becomes a vastly greater societal burden.

William F. Buckley, Jr. the author of God and Man at Yale and the editor of the National Review, that bastion of US conservatism, suggested that the optimal course for the US federal govt would be to import in bulk all narcotic supplies and distribute that basically for free to the addicts.  Then the consumers of the narcotics would be left to dose themselves literally forever, until the died  (which addicts typically do at younger ages).  If you talk with policemen they will tell you that some 97% of crime is connected to drugs.  If you eliminate the profits in handling narcotics then you get rid of crime and put the gangs out of business.  

Is that a cost to society?  Sure it is.  But remember that the current system has huge costs:  in policemen, prosecutors, courts, vast prison systems, prison guards, street crime, criminal gangs and their murders, shoplifting and muggings, home burglaries, car thefts, and inflated insurance premiums.  IT also causes broken homes, damaged children, and people ending up living on the streets and in subway tunnels.  Fighting drugs in the conventional sense is unworkable as social policy and is staggeringly expensive.  And that is before you face the costs of SWAT teams doing no-knock raids on the wrong houses and ending up in shoot-outs with victim homeowners who think their families are under criminal attack at 4 in the morning.  Lots of people end up dead from this "Swatting."  

So handing out free drugs to the druggies has, at least for me, nothing to do with feeling warm and fuzzy.  It has to do with paying that small price to avoid the societal decay that comes from the drug criminal gangs and the exorbitant costs attendant thereto. Will I pay tax dollars for that result?  But of course.  Let the druggies shoot themselves up all they like.  It is death on the installment plan, and that has two advantages:  a lowered reproduction rate for the mutated genes that predispose future persons to be druggies, and a substantially less violent society.  Think of it as a parasitic burden, something like paying for all those useless bureaucrats that infest Washington.  

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

Okay, so you are going to buy drugs in bulk and deliver them for free.

Who are you buying the drugs from? Are you going to take taxpayers money to purchase drugs from the drug cartels? Aren’t you now becoming the street gang/distribution system that guaranteed the outrageous profits to the cartels? Do you honestly think you will set the price for the drugs? The cartels are the only shop in town and they sure as heck will not accept a decrease in their profit margin to enact this nefarious plan.

You essentially keep the various cartels in business and perpetuate the vicious drug wars in Mexico and South America as they are now vying for tax dollars instead of street dollars. Can you live with that?

Now, what are all the drug addicts doing while they are shooting up or smoking their poison of choice? Are they now valuable members of society who can now take care of themselves since they no longer have to spend money for drugs? Are they going to clean up, get an apartment and move off the streets and out of the subway tunnels? How would that now be possible. Instead of committing crimes to get their next fix they’ll put their efforts to getting food and other necessities, stealing more to fence and moving up the food chain until they OD or they just expire.

Do you think that the street gangs would miraculously disappear? They’ll simply morph into other criminal endeavors such as prostitution, sex trafficking and the various other crimes associated with organized crime - which is exactly what they are.

[Kedar Wagh 0]

This is not a correct way of analysis. Most of the wealth calculated is based on the market value of their public share holdings. This is a notional value which also has future earnings potential built in. If they actually try to sell all their shares, it would not even fetch one tenth of current market value. Look at their cash in hand and bank balance, that will give the correct picture and I bet will not even total 100 bn for all 25.

And its funny how a rich person is defined by media. I agree the rich should pay more but the figures quoted in article are absolutely ridiculous. Articles like this only create sensation with poor understanding of ground dynamics.

[NickW + 2,714]

2 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Okay, so you are going to buy drugs in bulk and deliver them for free.

Who are you buying the drugs from? Are you going to take taxpayers money to purchase drugs from the drug cartels? Aren’t you now becoming the street gang/distribution system that guaranteed the outrageous profits to the cartels? Do you honestly think you will set the price for the drugs? The cartels are the only shop in town and they sure as heck will not accept a decrease in their profit margin to enact this nefarious plan.

You essentially keep the various cartels in business and perpetuate the vicious drug wars in Mexico and South America as they are now vying for tax dollars instead of street dollars. Can you live with that?

Now, what are all the drug addicts doing while they are shooting up or smoking their poison of choice? Are they now valuable members of society who can now take care of themselves since they no longer have to spend money for drugs? Are they going to clean up, get an apartment and move off the streets and out of the subway tunnels? How would that now be possible. Instead of committing crimes to get their next fix they’ll put their efforts to getting food and other necessities, stealing more to fence and moving up the food chain until they OD or they just expire.

Do you think that the street gangs would miraculously disappear? They’ll simply morph into other criminal endeavors such as prostitution, sex trafficking and the various other crimes associated with organized crime - which is exactly what they are.

How about legalise all drugs, license the sale and tax in the same way duty is put on alcohol or tobacco?

• This virtually eliminates the  involvement of criminal gangs.
• Massively reduces the crime associated with earning the funds to pay for the drug
• Decriminalises usage which makes prevention and treatment much easier
• The above is easily funded by duties placed on the drugs so no burden on the tax payer
• Restrictions on use of drugs while driving / in certain occupations easy to enforce as it is now.
• If you don't want to go the whole hog in one go start bylegalising class B drugs - Cannabis and  Ecstasy which is much less harmful than alcohol

 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

3 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Okay, so you are going to buy drugs in bulk and deliver them for free.

Who are you buying the drugs from? Are you going to take taxpayers money to purchase drugs from the drug cartels? Aren’t you now becoming the street gang/distribution system that guaranteed the outrageous profits to the cartels? Do you honestly think you will set the price for the drugs? The cartels are the only shop in town and they sure as heck will not accept a decrease in their profit margin to enact this nefarious plan.

You essentially keep the various cartels in business and perpetuate the vicious drug wars in Mexico and South America as they are now vying for tax dollars instead of street dollars. Can you live with that?

Now, what are all the drug addicts doing while they are shooting up or smoking their poison of choice? Are they now valuable members of society who can now take care of themselves since they no longer have to spend money for drugs? Are they going to clean up, get an apartment and move off the streets and out of the subway tunnels? How would that now be possible. Instead of committing crimes to get their next fix they’ll put their efforts to getting food and other necessities, stealing more to fence and moving up the food chain until they OD or they just expire.

Do you think that the street gangs would miraculously disappear? They’ll simply morph into other criminal endeavors such as prostitution, sex trafficking and the various other crimes associated with organized crime - which is exactly what they are.

Legal drug companies will happily pick up the slack. Cartels only exist because it's illegal. I remember years ago going to a dentist and he had a little square bottle with a white substance in it. I asked him what it was and he showed me the label. Pure cocaine, one ounce. I asked him how much he paid and he said, $30. Street price at that time? $3000 easily. The price has gone up for it (BTW it was for people who had reactions to Novocaine) not because it's more expensive to process but because of all the paperwork as a controlled substance. 

I'm not thrilled with everyone getting free drugs and if the @Jan van Eck plan takes off, I'd like to see some kind of social stigma, like a face tattoo for the junkies to keep honest folk from deciding this is a great life. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

3 hours ago, Ward Smith said:

I'm not thrilled with everyone getting free drugs and if the @Jan van Eck plan takes off, I'd like to see some kind of social stigma, like a face tattoo for the junkies to keep honest folk from deciding this is a great life. 

I would immediately mention that this is NOT my "plan," it emanates from William F. Buckley, Jr., an pre-eminent thinker of the American Conservative movement.   I do think it has merit, but I deny authorship of it.