do you think he's paying taxes?
The government shouldn't interfere with how much he makes unless they decide that Oracle's profits were attained illegally or through monopolistic means. However, they should drastically raise the taxes on insane incomes like this. Something around 60% for a top tax bracket sounds fair to me for those making > $10 million a year -- and no capital gains loopholes. It's not about what's fair. It's about the best interest of society holistically. Concentrating too much wealth in the top 0.0001% will result in very bad things all around in the future.
How is a historically ineffective and inefficient government confiscating 60% of persons wealth in the best interest of society holistically? If you want to punish rich people just say so but don't mask it in the cloak of doing good for society.
There is a set amount of pie to go around. Sure it grows very slowly over time, but that will happen regardless of the highest tax bracket. A 60% bracket isn't communism or even socialism; it doesn't remove the incentive to be the most productive you can by any means. The way society is heading is toward most of the wealth being concentrated not in the 1 % so commonly discussed in the media, but in the top 0.1%. Soon that will become the the top 0.01% and so forth. Even among the forbes 400, wealth is more concentrated in the top 10 relative to ranks 300-400 than it ever has been. When Forbes started the list in 1982, the richest man had 27 times as much money as the #400th richest. Today that multiple has risen to over 60x--and not because of a single outlier. The macro causes for this have to do with increased automation with most of the productivity gains enriching the capitalist class while the middle class sees real wages fall. By 2040, over half of the current jobs will be permanently replaced by machines. And it's not just low-skilled positions, even surgeons are at risk. These jobs won't be replaced easily. Humans simply will be needed less and less in the global economy over the next century, no matter how intelligent or hard-working they may be. But where does the reward of the productivity go? There certainly won't be any less wealth created. It won't be going to the robots--but rather to the owners of the robots, the 0.00001% will capture most of the wealth by the middle of this century. If you can't see a problem with that, let's end the discussion there as we obviously don't see eye to eye on the goals of our species. I believe that all humans have equal worth, and that our goals are 1. ultimate knowledge, 2. ultimate freedom, and 3. maximizing total pleasure while minimizing total pain. Giving nearly all the rewards of society's progress to a handful of people among billions is about the furthest thing from that goal that I can imagine.
Great...failed to address the question.
There is a set amount of pie to go around. Sure it grows very slowly over time, but that will happen regardless of the highest tax bracket. A 60% bracket isn't communism or even socialism; it doesn't remove the incentive to be the most productive you can by any means. The way society is heading is toward most of the wealth being concentrated not in the 1 % so commonly discussed in the media, but in the top 0.1%. Soon that will become the the top 0.01% and so forth. Even among the forbes 400, wealth is more concentrated in the top 10 relative to ranks 300-400 than it ever has been. When Forbes started the list in 1982, the richest man had 27 times as much money as the #400th richest. Today that multiple has risen to over 60x--and not because of a single outlier. The macro causes for this have to do with increased automation with most of the productivity gains enriching the capitalist class while the middle class sees real wages fall. By 2040, over half of the current jobs will be permanently replaced by machines. And it's not just low-skilled positions, even surgeons are at risk. These jobs won't be replaced easily. Humans simply will be needed less and less in the global economy over the next century, no matter how intelligent or hard-working they may be. But where does the reward of the productivity go? There certainly won't be any less wealth created. It won't be going to the robots--but rather to the owners of the robots, the 0.00001% will capture most of the wealth by the middle of this century. If you can't see a problem with that, let's end the discussion there as we obviously don't see eye to eye on the goals of our species. I believe that all humans have equal worth, and that our goals are 1. ultimate knowledge, 2. ultimate freedom, and 3. maximizing total pleasure while minimizing total pain. Giving nearly all the rewards of society's progress to a handful of people among billions is about the furthest thing from that goal that I can imagine.
Pretty good post on the economic situation. Epicurus would be proud of you for the bolded part.
The continuing polarization of income and the icreasing concentration of enormous wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer people in America are dangerous trends. The issue needs to be addressed. This is no longer an option.
Why is it not a "zero sum game"...at least to some extent? Where does that $77 million come from? Does Oracle have a printing press by which they just add that $77 million into the nation's total money supply?
As I see it, unless Oracle has a money printing press, there are only three places from which Oracle can extract that $77 million to pay Ellison.
1) They pay other employees less.
2) They extract it from profits which would otherwise go to all the stockholders in some form at some point.
3) They charge more for their products and services so as not to impact the net profit....which means that all other people who use Oracle products are paying for Ellison's $77 million/year payout.
And in all three of these scenerios, Ellison's $77 million is coming out of the pockets of other people somewhere. That is basically the definition of a "zero sum game". Oracle hasn't created any new money to pay for that $77 million.
How is a historically ineffective and inefficient government confiscating 60% of persons wealth in the best interest of society holistically? If you want to punish rich people just say so but don't mask it in the cloak of doing good for society.