Elon Musk: Mass Murderer

[Dr Exiled]

Ms. Adelson's money controls this guy too much …

This is the reason why I’ve always asserted that rather than Trump being some sort of populist antidote to the world of ordinary politicians, Trump is the ultimate example of what so-called populists define ‘politicians’ to be.

Got money? Need a thing? Trump is your man. There are no other principles in play.

The donors will get what they want and the only way to stop it is to come together, stop pointing fingers and let's go after those at the top. There are more of us than them. We need to reverse the concentration of wealth at the top and I believe that only radical anti-trust enforcement will do. Break it all up and let middle management step in and run their own show. Google should be broken up. Health care should be freed from big pharma and the insurance companies and they should be broken up too. Barriers to entry should be lowered to a point that allows anyone to enter the market. And stop the wars and stop letting a tiny country in the middle east govern our foreign policy.

[Physics Guy]

I’d like to see an analysis of the consequences of a legal cap on individual net worth. Anything that anybody owns above some level—maybe a billion, maybe as low as ten million—is simply confiscated immediately by the state. It’s progressive taxation with a 100% top bracket, and not just on income but on total assets.

It’s a big infringement on the freedom of rich people, for sure. But it doesn’t seem so far in that way from the limits that anti-trust laws place upon corporations to just do whatever they want.

I’m not exactly advocating the measure. I’d just like to consider it. I definitely don’t want to ban all wealth. I think it’s clear that the freedom to get rich tends to benefit everyone a lot, even the people who don’t get rich, because the ones who do get rich do so by benefiting everyone else, like Henry Ford making a billion by giving affordable cars to everyone, and a decent wage to a lot of workers.

I’m just suspecting that the general social benefit of the freedom to get rich may have diminishing returns. Maybe a cap at some level would work out better. Maybe the chance of getting a hundred million bucks is all the motivation anyone needs to provide things the rest of us want, and having more just enables them to do things that we don’t want.

The freedom to get much richer than most people is a tool to serve society in general, not a sacred principle that we all have to serve. We should maybe think again about how far we want it to go.

[Dr Exiled]

I’d like to see an analysis of the consequences of a legal cap on individual net worth. Anything that anybody owns above some level—maybe a billion, maybe as low as ten million—is simply confiscated immediately by the state. It’s progressive taxation with a 100% top bracket, and not just on income but on total assets.

It’s a big infringement on the freedom of rich people, for sure. But it doesn’t seem so far in that way from the limits that anti-trust laws place upon corporations to just do whatever they want.

I’m not exactly advocating the measure. I’d just like to consider it. I definitely don’t want to ban all wealth. I think it’s clear that the freedom to get rich tends to benefit everyone a lot, even the people who don’t get rich, because the ones who do get rich do so by benefiting everyone else, like Henry Ford making a billion by giving affordable cars to everyone, and a decent wage to a lot of workers.

I’m just suspecting that the general social benefit of the freedom to get rich may have diminishing returns. Maybe a cap at some level would work out better. Maybe the chance of getting a hundred million bucks is all the motivation anyone needs to provide things the rest of us want, and having more just enables them to do things that we don’t want.

The freedom to get much richer than most people is a tool to serve society in general, not a sacred principle that we all have to serve. We should maybe think again about how far we want it to go.

I think it dovetails into the "no kings" protest that just occurred. We don't want kings but the true kings are those oligarchs that have enough money to affect who is the front man or front woman for them. I think there is a line and when crossed wealth becomes destructive to the rest of society. Sure, let people compete and get the rewards for their work and markets serve that function. However, monopoly and leveraging monopoly to gain monopoly power over other industries seems to be the game and that's where it starts to harm society. Blackrock, Vanguard and Statestreet should be broken up along with others.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

This is the reason why I’ve always asserted that rather than Trump being some sort of populist antidote to the world of ordinary politicians, Trump is the ultimate example of what so-called populists define ‘politicians’ to be.

Got money? Need a thing? Trump is your man. There are no other principles in play.

The donors will get what they want and the only way to stop it is to come together, stop pointing fingers and let's go after those at the top. There are more of us than them. We need to reverse the concentration of wealth at the top and I believe that only radical anti-trust enforcement will do. Break it all up and let middle management step in and run their own show. Google should be broken up. Health care should be freed from big pharma and the insurance companies and they should be broken up too. Barriers to entry should be lowered to a point that allows anyone to enter the market. And stop the wars and stop letting a tiny country in the middle east govern our foreign policy.

Amen to that.

[Doctor Steuss]

[...] Blackrock, Vanguard and Statestreet should be broken up along with others.

Moderately related; I don't know if you saw the RJ article back in March, but right now a hedge fund based out of NY owns more homes in the Las Vegas valley than any other entity (private or public). Bonkers.

[Kishkumen]

I’d like to see an analysis of the consequences of a legal cap on individual net worth. Anything that anybody owns above some level—maybe a billion, maybe as low as ten million—is simply confiscated immediately by the state. It’s progressive taxation with a 100% top bracket, and not just on income but on total assets.

It’s a big infringement on the freedom of rich people, for sure. But it doesn’t seem so far in that way from the limits that anti-trust laws place upon corporations to just do whatever they want.

I’m not exactly advocating the measure. I’d just like to consider it. I definitely don’t want to ban all wealth. I think it’s clear that the freedom to get rich tends to benefit everyone a lot, even the people who don’t get rich, because the ones who do get rich do so by benefiting everyone else, like Henry Ford making a billion by giving affordable cars to everyone, and a decent wage to a lot of workers.

I’m just suspecting that the general social benefit of the freedom to get rich may have diminishing returns. Maybe a cap at some level would work out better. Maybe the chance of getting a hundred million bucks is all the motivation anyone needs to provide things the rest of us want, and having more just enables them to do things that we don’t want.

The freedom to get much richer than most people is a tool to serve society in general, not a sacred principle that we all have to serve. We should maybe think again about how far we want it to go.

Something has to give. The political process has become almost completely corrupted by money. There should probably be state-funded elections in which each candidate who passes a certain statistical threshold of support is allowed equal time to make their case to the American people in a limited number of venues. I don't see that a cap on wealth and personal assets at 1 billion would be a bad thing or unfair in any way. Accomplishing that would be difficult, however. Multi-billionaires would probably just emigrate to other countries and hold onto their money and assets.

[Dr Exiled]

[...] Blackrock, Vanguard and Statestreet should be broken up along with others.

Moderately related; I don't know if you saw the RJ article back in March, but right now a hedge fund based out of NY owns more homes in the Las Vegas valley than any other entity (private or public). Bonkers.

Yep and it looks like there might be a correction coming and some of those properties may be available soon. However, the bill to curb corporate ownership of homes recently failed thanks to Lombardo.

https://nevadacurrent.com/2025/05/28/at ... ownership/

[Dr. Shades]

Much of a rich country's national debt is actually owed to its own citizens, including corporate citizens, who have purchased securities like US Treasury Bills. So the same money which is being counted as an obligation for the government is part of the positive wealth of some of its citizens.

Yes, "some." The 1%.

These lenders do not want the money all paid back right away, and they don't want the government to stop borrowing more. They have deliberately and voluntarily lent money to their own government, not mainly from patriotism, if at all, but because they consider this to be the safest investment that they can make. These lenders would definitely rather lend their money to the government, and get it repaid with interest, than have to pay higher taxes.

And in that way, John Q. Public must be taxed in order to funnel money to the 1%. It sounds like you're advocating that the rich get richer and the middle class continue to disappear.

Also, we seem to be forgetting that there are plenty of people here in the United States that need charitable aid. In my opinion, the government has no business sending a single penny overseas until A) the national debt is completely paid off, B) the deficit is reduced to $0, and C) there is not a single homeless person in the country.

Can anyone justify the government sending a single penny overseas while those three conditions remain unmet?

To grossly simplify things, every person in the United States receives charitable aid, through expenditures on items like infrastructure and military spending. This is why ajax doesn’t need to spend his own money pouring asphalt for streets to access his business, or drilling his own wells to provide water for his toilet, or needing to stock up on nuclear pitchforks to keep the barbarian Visigoth and Hermunduri hordes at bay. This ‘charity’ via taxation spreads the cost of those tasks around while making all of the benefits much more affordable through efficiencies of scale than if shouldered by the individual directly.

I know all that. But you'll notice that I never said that taxes extracted from Americans should NOT be spent on benefitting AMERICANS.

As I said before, the government has no business sending a single penny overseas until A) the national debt is completely paid off, B) the deficit is reduced to $0, and C) there is not a single homeless person in the country. Can anyone justify the government sending a single penny overseas while those three conditions remain unmet?

It's wild that it took only a singular cult leader for a huge swath of the proletariat to gleefully celebrate the decimation of the cornerstone of enlightened self-interest within neoclassical economic theory.

The shoe doesn't fit me. I thought foreign aid was a bad idea from the very start. If other countries need our money, let them borrow it and pay us interest rather than forcing the American taxpayer to borrow it for them, and pay their interest, on their behalf.

[Jersey Girl]

There are more of us than them.

Given that there are more of us than them, what do you think would happen if we refused to pay federal taxes? Thoreau did it almost 200 years ago and it went on to inspire other movements so why can't we let it inspire ours?

Civil Disobedience: https://blogs.law.columbia.edu/uprising ... horeau.pdf

[Chap]

As I said before, the government has no business sending a single penny overseas until A) the national debt is completely paid off, B) the deficit is reduced to $0, and C) there is not a single homeless person in the country. Can anyone justify the government sending a single penny overseas while those three conditions remain unmet?

Several people just did explain to you why spending an appropriate proportion of national revenue overseas can be part of the strategy of a prudent government that has the long-term interest of its the country at heart. They also explained about the national debt, deficits, etc. But it is evident that you are not interested in thinking about complicated stuff.

By the way, to help people understand your position, can you just refer us to an example of a successful and prosperous modern country that has adopted the three policies you outline above?