this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
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Very hard to define this rule. Money in the bank? Collective value of possessions? Value of those possessions set by whom and to what standard? What about rich people not owning much but having everything in their company, non profit, etc.
That's why writing laws is hard. But you get the intention: limit wealth inequality.
If they can spend the money on something not necessary for the company it should be counted as their money I think
Companies get their own money separate from an individual but after a certain bracket they have to be audited by an impartial third party to make sure the money isn't just being used for personal stuff
Why do we collectively call people like that rich?
Most of the rich, including billionaires, don't have any actual wealth. Even the stocks they take loans out against aren't really a guaranteed source of funds; the stock market could crash over any little old thing, wiping the books.
I believe most rich people are just scammers who tricked everyone else into giving them special privileges, and most of America's wealth is not real. I think the real wealth, i.e. the gold and such, were stolen decades ago.
Not even gold is "real wealth". The value ascribed to gold is in essence the same as the value we ascribe to anything else.
It holds objective value whether humans decide it has value to them or not. It's useful for certain things and would be useful for other intelligent, technological creatures besides humans because those uses are objective -- its malleability, resistance to rusting and conductivity make it valuable outside of the perceived human experience.
Land is probably a better measure of objective, external value though. Let's go with land -- the real rich people are the landowners, as they're the ones who can call the shots by deciding whether you can even exist in certain areas or not.