Farhad ManjooVerified account

Most billionaires are billionaires because they took the risk to build something substantial and people buy it. You don't like billionaires? Don't buy their products. They became billionaires because there's people buying the product or service they offer, supply and demand. 1/2

Going by the logic of having more than they need, so it needs to be reduced, then all of our lifestyles should be reduced. We all have things we don't need, aka "luxuries." This is crab in the pot mentality, trying to bring someone down because they have achieved more than us.

Now, more than ever, a fewer group of people have an intense concentration of wealth. Do you think wealth inequality is an issue in our current day?

Income inequality is an issue, but thats the way its always been, for ages. But I believe we fail to awknowledge that this arguement applied more 100yrs ago than it does now. Before you HAD to be born into wealth or be extremely talented in signing or acting, not the case anymore

Compare your first salary with your current one? In my case it's a factor of 100 growth. And I am not even a millionaire. Would that have been possible in past? Facts need perspective

Point being - they made their money by the rules. Change the rules is fine. But dont go behind anything anyone have already acuured. I would hate it if govt asked me to pay 10k from my assets

I would like someone who supports this idea to explain how to deal with people who start companies that become very valuable. Do you take shares away from them when they exceed a specific value? Do you give them back if they lose value? Do you force them to sell, and then tax it?

I'd like someone who tweets questions about a piece to read the actual article before asking questions.

the article doesn't address my question. Did you read it yourself?

that doesn't address the issue of what to do about stock. If you're only going to tax cash, then you end up doing nothing about all the billionaires people complain about. Their wealth is in stock, not cash.

Then tax the value of the stocks they own...

That forces them to sell their shares, which is not always a good thing. What about privately held companies that are worth a lot. Who decides their value?

Value of private companies is already known. Its required for insurance, taxes, etc. They are not forced to sell their shares. They could instead reinvest their money into the company/pay workers more/ donate more/ etc

This is almost as dumb as “abolish journalists because fake news.”

FYI this was my handle more than a year ago. Thx for the mention and the column though!