The subject is the basically lays out the question.  At what point does someone become so wealthy that it becomes immoral?  Generally speaking there is a negative notion to the fact of people having great wealth.  Having a very small number of people controlling most of the wealth of the world or exponentially more than others is totally played as bad.  A lot of times it seems to be generally attributed that those of great wealth is somehow malicious for not sharing their wealth as if they are hoarding it in Scrooge's money bin.  I have had this type of discussion with some of my office cronies in the past and the one thing I find most interesting is that it does seem a bit impossible to become a billionaire without the exploitation of others.  Whether they work for you directly or not, it seems no matter which way someone becomes a billionaire there is someone at the bottom of the food chain getting paid pennies for torturous labor.

I'll bite.

I 100% believe people that become billionaires while not even paying their employees a living wage are immoral.

I believe people who hoard wealth with no intention of putting it back into the economy, often seeking overseas tax shelters/havens to ENSURE the country they live in doesn't receive it's appropriate percentage are immoral.

I believe companies that insist on "passing" the costs of fair wages to their consumers, cut people's hours so they're part-time and therefore not eligible for health care, and give golden parachutes to failing executives are immoral.

None of that says you can't be wealthy. None of that even says you cannot be a billionaire.

People too often try and conflate billionaires and millionaires, as if they're playing in the same ballpark. Here's a fun comparison I heard that puts the amount of money a millionaire has vs. someone with billions using time:

1 million seconds = about 11 Days
1 billion seconds = 31.7 YEARS

It's inconceivable how much wealth such a fraction-of-a-fraction of people have compared to the rest of the country.

Capitalism is fine when all elements are meant to work towards the whole. When we had 70 percent tax rates, we still saw substantial growth. Something went really, really wrong in the last quarter of the century, though.

Feb 6, 2019 0:40:14 GMT KJ said:

I'll bite.

I 100% believe people that become billionaires while not even paying their employees a living wage are immoral.

I believe people who hoard wealth with no intention of putting it back into the economy, often seeking overseas tax shelters/havens to ENSURE the country they live in doesn't receive it's appropriate percentage are immoral.

I believe companies that insist on "passing" the costs of fair wages to their consumers, cut people's hours so they're part-time and therefore not eligible for health care, and give golden parachutes to failing executives are immoral.

None of that says you can't be wealthy. None of that even says you cannot be a billionaire.

People too often try and conflate billionaires and millionaires, as if they're playing in the same ballpark. Here's a fun comparison I heard that puts the amount of money a millionaire has vs. someone with billions using time:

1 million seconds = about 11 Days
1 billion seconds = 31.7 YEARS

It's inconceivable how much wealth such a fraction-of-a-fraction of people have compared to the rest of the country.

Capitalism is fine when all elements are meant to work towards the whole. When we had 70 percent tax rates, we still saw substantial growth. Something went really, really wrong in the last quarter of the century, though.

I'll bite back.
Firstly, anyone that doesn't pay their employees a living wage is a piece of crap no matter how much you're worth.
70% taxes don't work in a global economy it is why people move to other countries with friendlier tax laws.
Everyone should pay the same rate of tax regardless of income with no deductions or exceptions.
I'm all for 70% Estate tax though (For any liquidated assets)

Apart from that the anti-rich sentiment is based on really faulty logic.
If someone becomes a "Billionare" it's about their worth not their bank account.
It's wrong to say that the wealth is created at the expense of you and I, it is essentially money created out of thin air.
If I make a cake out of $4 of ingredients and cut it into 10 slices.
Me selling one slice for $5 gives me a net worth of $40 whether or not those slices are sold.

Amazon shares are worth $1,658.81
They have a P/E ratio of 85.38
Which is bizarre and makes no sense and is completely unrealistic.
Jeff Bezos owns 78,893,280 shares of Amazon stock, which as of Feb 2018 works out to more than $120 billion in value
A normal P/E ration is say 15, which would reduce the worth of his Amazon shares to 21 billion...
And guess what... This money doesn't exist.

I’m well aware of how net worth and stocks work.

None of that actually counters my points.

Flat tax is either a oppression to the poor or the largest tax cut for the wealthy ever. There’s no in between.

I fall within one of the higher tax brackets; and I hover right below the 1-2% (which shows how wide a net that actually is lol), so don’t make assumptions about my motivations.

KJ, simply put, you believe a moral billionaire can exist?

Feb 6, 2019 12:05:58 GMT KJ said:

I’m well aware of how net worth and stocks work.

None of that actually counters my points.

Flat tax is either a oppression to the poor or the largest tax cut for the wealthy ever. There’s no in between.

I fall within one of the higher tax brackets; and I hover right below the 1-2% (which shows how wide a net that actually is lol), so don’t make assumptions about my motivations.

Of course it counters your points.
Firstly, I didn't assume your motives, I know you aren't in the bottom classes, i was addressing your ideology, not your personal outlook.

The idea that Billionaires exist at the expense of the poor is fundamentally wrong.
In MOST cases if they didn't create those billions, the billions wouldn't exist.
The issue is that for many people they assume that if the billions didn't belong to them in the first place then everyone else would be somehow richer.
It is simply not possible in a global economy to stimulate economies through the raising of taxes, you just cause money to be offshored.
In Australia we have a 30% corporate tax rate and companies like Apple and Google, just ensure their profits are declared and taxed on low taxation economies such as Ireland.
Look at how many sports stars are registered citizens of countries like Monacco.

Here is one that comes to mind of what socialism motivates the rich to do.

finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/gerard-depardieu-quits-france-because-high-taxes-173222852.html

I pay heaps of tax and I am happy to support a strong society, but it is about everyone paying their share.
If there was a flat tax then everyone would be free and motivated to earn more.
I see the rise of people on the Bernie Sanders like bandwagon and I would love to see a study of the net hours worked per week by those with Socialist ideals.
It is hypocrisy to see them protest corporate greed, while arguing that money should be distributed to them... and they didn't work for it?? How is that not greed??

Greed is bad, paying no taxes is bad, underpaying workers is bad...
All of these things I do not disagree with, but when you crank the taxes, rich people leave and you get no taxes and you completely disincentive the working class.
Let's not forget that Socialism has failed each and every time it has been applied anywhere in the world.

iNCY, "In MOST cases if they didn't create those billions, the billions wouldn't exist."

Trivia data on your point.

one data point from Wealth-X: More than half of the world’s billionaires are self-made.

And that number is increasing. Self-made billionaires represent 57 percent of total billionaire wealth, or more than $4.3 trillion, a figure that was up 7 percent from 2014. Meanwhile, the number of billionaires with inherited wealth — 323, according to Wealth-X — fell by 29 percent from 2014.

Feb 6, 2019 19:37:11 GMT theend said:

one data point from Wealth-X: More than half of the world’s billionaires are self-made.

I can only speak on American finances, but this is a completely misleading stat because 60% of wealth in America is inherited. Like one could cite Trump as a self made billionaire, but it's because he inherited hundreds of millions of dollars to make more money with. This is how income growth works in America. Rich get richer, poor get poorer. For 40 straight years. I imagine the majority of the 50%+ self made billionaires come from (at least) upper middle class backgrounds (Zuckerberg, Gates), even more with families worth merely millions, or hundreds of millions even (Musk, Kochs, Waltons). The former would already put you in the Top 10 percent of Americans, the latter a Top 1 percenter and above. On a macro level socioeconomic growth in general is now rare, let alone a "self-made" billionaire sort of growth which is basically lottery odds.

Feb 6, 2019 17:56:03 GMT iNCY said:

but when you crank the taxes, rich people leave and you get no taxes and you completely disincentive the working class.

I don't know what it's like by you, but in America the period where the rich were taxed the most (post-New Deal to roughly the mid-1970s which had a marginal tax rate between 70%-90% for 30 of those years!) saw the greatest economic growth and the tiniest gap in wealth inequality in American history, so you actually couldn't be more wrong. 

Feb 6, 2019 17:56:03 GMT iNCY said:

If there was a flat tax then everyone would be free and motivated to earn more.

There is literally zero evidence of this. In fact, all examples of anything resembling a flat tax (the 1920s in America, where the tax rate on the wealthy dropped from 73% to 25%) support the opposite. It's literally called the Robber Baron Era here and it was the major factor of our Great Depression. Russia has the closest thing to a flat tax currently and as a result very quickly caught up to American in being equally unequal. Free Market is a myth because it doesn't come with a time machine. The people that already have money are at the advantage and pillage whatever is left from the rest who are merely "motivated" without the bankroll. 

Kilgore , is that stat really misleading? It just says what it says. "More than half of the world’s billionaires are self-made." When you stated "60% of the wealth in America is inherited" that's just a different thing all together right? One refers to only billionaires and one refers to all wealth in America. Seems to be conflating the two when it comes and then to throw in upper middle class. Does being upper middle class mean your wealth is inherited? Or disqualify you from being self-made somehow?  I feel it is more misleading to take a clean stat and throw in all these other factors.  The stat stands on its own without an intention or intention to mislead.

Feb 6, 2019 21:18:39 GMT theend said:

Kilgore , is that stat really misleading? It just says what it says. "More than half of the world’s billionaires are self-made." When you stated "60% of the wealth in America is inherited" that's just a different thing all together right? One refers to only billionaires and one refers to all wealth in America. Seems to be conflating the two when it comes and then to throw in upper middle class. Does being upper middle class mean your wealth is inherited? Or disqualify you from being self-made somehow?

When you put it that way, you're not wrong. I was objecting to the implication of "self-made," which tends to sell the bullshit that anyone can be one. Maybe that's just me that reads it that way. I find it an ugly sleight of hand especially when many of the "self-made" billionaires are coming from tens and hundreds of millions of dollars of inherited wealth. My larger point, and maybe I failed miserably trying to make it, is that if "only" half are self-made, and most of the other half comes from the Top 10% and above (of which 60% of that wealth was inherited), that's not exactly a meritocracy at work. That's a ruling class. Worse than that, it's a shrinking ruling class meaning that the 90% that probably will never be wealthy, let a alone billionaires, might be 95% in a decade's time. Yes, this is immoral.

Feb 6, 2019 20:45:23 GMT Kilgore said:

Feb 6, 2019 19:37:11 GMT theend said:

one data point from Wealth-X: More than half of the world’s billionaires are self-made.

I can only speak on American finances, but this is a completely misleading stat because 60% of wealth in America is inherited. Like one could cite Trump as a self made billionaire, but it's because he inherited hundreds of millions of dollars to make more money with. This is how income growth works in America. Rich get richer, poor get poorer. For 40 straight years. I imagine the majority of the 50%+ self made billionaires come from (at least) upper middle class backgrounds (Zuckerberg, Gates), even more with families worth merely millions, or hundreds of millions even (Musk, Kochs, Waltons). The former would already put you in the Top 10 percent of Americans, the latter a Top 1 percenter and above. On a macro level socioeconomic growth in general is now rare, let alone a "self-made" billionaire sort of growth which is basically lottery odds.

This is often repeated total crap.
They calculate the poor getting poorer based on their relative income to the richest.
So if the richest are now twice as wealthy they once were this skews the poverty line.
Poverty is not a statistical analysis and whether someone can pay the bills or not is completely unrelated to the net worth of Bill Gates.
The middle class has risen steadily in its income.

The middle classes of the USA, Australia and Canada have absolutely no reason to complain and have a living standard that is unheard of in most of the world.

I may have been sold some rich bs bit I've generally heard the poor is much richer than they ever have been. The bottom 1% lives better than they ever have in history.

On iNCY point, I can only speak on Australia. But having visited family in Western Europe - who are all moderately to highly educated and it seems, successful people, yet they cannot believe the sheer wealth and living standard we possess in Australia.

And it wasn't a case of ' there's more room in Australia to build ' they instead lived an almost minimalist lifestyle, an almost avoidance of material and excess to maintain some degree of living standard. Of course numerous factors are at play here, but it was mind-blowing to a few what we ( including friends and family ) as potentially upper, but most likely middle class families had.

Feb 7, 2019 0:47:24 GMT NATH45 said:

On iNCY point, I can only speak on Australia. But having visited family in Western Europe - who are all moderately to highly educated and it seems, successful people, yet they cannot believe the sheer wealth and living standard we possess in Australia.

And it wasn't a case of ' there's more room in Australia to build ' they instead lived an almost minimalist lifestyle, an almost avoidance of material and excess to maintain some degree of living standard. Of course numerous factors are at play here, but it was mind-blowing to a few what we ( including friends and family ) as potentially upper, but most likely middle class families had.

Yes, in most countries home ownership is a pipe dream, let alone a detached house on a quarter of an acre, two cars in the driveway and take-out at least twice per week. 

Feb 7, 2019 0:20:44 GMT theend said:

I may have been sold some rich bs bit I've generally heard the poor is much richer than they ever have been. The bottom 1% lives better than they ever have in history.

I mean, kindasortaprobably? I'm reminded of that old Fox News infographic about how many poor people have microwaves, which is true, but also misses the point about class mobility and home ownership.

As to the original topic, I don't think having a billion dollars by itself is moral or immoral, it just is. But, considering the work and drive involved to become a billionaire and not just a multimillionaire (KJ's time comparison shows how VASTLY different they are in scale) I think such people are probably weirdly compulsive in the way someone hoards old magazines from 50 years ago, but instead of paper they're hoarding money.

It could conceivably be immoral in that -- so a boss really only hires someone if they can get more value out of the employee than they're paying him, right? If it costs (wages+payroll taxes+health care+401k+etc.) $100k a year to hire a salesman and they bring in $125k of revenue then you hire him. That $25k difference is all yours. All the better if you can get that salesman at $80k, then you get even more profit. So with that in mind, how many people, and how much extra value are you extracting out of their work to get to the $1b mark? That miiight be immoral, though it would depend on the person.

And I'm assuming this ties in with the 70% tax rate at $10 million talking point, which again is not necessarily moral or immoral but depends on how you look at it. It's a common misconception that the entire amount would be taxed at 70%, but let's assume for a second that it would. Between federal/state/local/everything it adds up to 70%, which again is a beyond-worst-case scenario.

You'd have three million dollars. Enough to buy a nice house, a decent car, pre-fund two kids' university tuition in full AND STILL HAVE MONEY LEFT OVER. For a single year's work. After a second or a third year working at that salary you'd be more than set for life, and at some point even a 100% tax (while DEFINITELY immoral) would not affect your day to day lifestyle in any meaningful way.

In the meantime, that tax money would go to the gov't. One huge misconception I see over and over is that... I dunno, I guess people think the government takes all this tax money and burns it in a giant fire instead of using it. Very locally here in the 1970s, California's Prop 13 basically fixed property tax to the price of your house when you bought it. Teachers' salaries go up with time, the cost of keeping the roads paved goes up, but the amount of money being brought into the state gov't for these things is staying static (or decreasing when you account for inflation). And now state college tuition has skyrocketed, because tax money that would otherwise be keeping it super-affordable just isn't there anymore. So a stiff tax on people who make enough money that they really wouldn't notice it to pay for an educated workforce isn't immoral to me at all.

Feb 10, 2019 23:54:40 GMT Michinokudriver said:

Feb 7, 2019 0:20:44 GMT theend said:

So a stiff tax on people who make enough money that they really wouldn't notice it to pay for an educated workforce isn't immoral to me at all.

This is where psychology is really interesting.
We are advocating the morality in taking something from someone regardless of their wishes for the "common good"

It would be interesting to see how many people of this mindset support: Censorship, Gun Control, Freedom of Speech etc.
Which is pretty much the same argument applied in different fields.

Feb 12, 2019 8:34:22 GMT iNCY said:

Feb 10, 2019 23:54:40 GMT Michinokudriver said:

This is where psychology is really interesting.
We are advocating the morality in taking something from someone regardless of their wishes for the "common good"

It would be interesting to see how many people of this mindset support: Censorship, Gun Control, Freedom of Speech etc.
Which is pretty much the same argument applied in different fields.

I’m not sure any of those are the same - to each other or Taxation.

And by the way, the entire idea of taxes is to support “the common good.”

Realistically, these billionaires wouldn’t have nearly as much wealth if they paid their workforce a meaningful salary, because the impact to OpEx would dramatically shift the profits for a company.

Having wealth in of itself is not immoral. It's what you do with it that determines that.

Feb 17, 2019 2:38:37 GMT thereallt said:

Having wealth in of itself is not immoral. It's what you do with it that determines that.

I would add to this that how you obtain it can define immorality. If you gain vast wealth because you didn’t pay your workers a livable wage, that’s immoral to me.

Feb 17, 2019 2:09:08 GMT KJ said:

Feb 12, 2019 8:34:22 GMT iNCY said:

This is where psychology is really interesting.
We are advocating the morality in taking something from someone regardless of their wishes for the "common good"

It would be interesting to see how many people of this mindset support: Censorship, Gun Control, Freedom of Speech etc.
Which is pretty much the same argument applied in different fields.

I’m not sure any of those are the same - to each other or Taxation.

And by the way, the entire idea of taxes is to support “the common good.”

Realistically, these billionaires wouldn’t have nearly as much wealth if they paid their workforce a meaningful salary, because the impact to OpEx would dramatically shift the profits for a company.

There's always lots of ways to look at things.

I can easily argue that anyone who owns a smart phone or a TV is equally immoral along with the vast majority of the clothing you own....
If we purchase form countries that manufacture in low cost countries, we are perpetuate the idea that the price we pay is far more important than the worker that makes them.

It's the same way that most of the people who whine about Walmart shop there... 

Feb 12, 2019 8:34:22 GMT iNCY said:

Feb 10, 2019 23:54:40 GMT Michinokudriver said:

This is where psychology is really interesting.
We are advocating the morality in taking something from someone regardless of their wishes for the "common good"

It would be interesting to see how many people of this mindset support: Censorship, Gun Control, Freedom of Speech etc.
Which is pretty much the same argument applied in different fields.

In my case, probably about how you'd expect.

Freedom of speech, as a grand and vague concept, is awesome and desirable. But should there be laws against libel? Or publishing the exact formula to make Coke? If you were to phrase it as "common sense restrictions on free speech" it sounds SUPER oppressive and evil but it's really saying McDonald's shouldn't be able to start rumors that Wendy's uses rat meat or whatever.

Same with gun control. In grand principle, I don't particularly care who owns what. But when talking about the real world, yes I would support forcible confiscation of guns from a schizo who refuses to seek treatment or taking away old canisters of nerve gas from someone who shows no real interest in making sure they're well maintained and safe.

So my stance is generally "yes freedom, but at some point whoa wait a moment let's not get too carried away here."

Feb 20, 2019 1:40:15 GMT Michinokudriver said:

Feb 12, 2019 8:34:22 GMT iNCY said:

This is where psychology is really interesting.
We are advocating the morality in taking something from someone regardless of their wishes for the "common good"

It would be interesting to see how many people of this mindset support: Censorship, Gun Control, Freedom of Speech etc.
Which is pretty much the same argument applied in different fields.

In my case, probably about how you'd expect.

Freedom of speech, as a grand and vague concept, is awesome and desirable. But should there be laws against libel? Or publishing the exact formula to make Coke? If you were to phrase it as "common sense restrictions on free speech" it sounds SUPER oppressive and evil but it's really saying McDonald's shouldn't be able to start rumors that Wendy's uses rat meat or whatever.

Same with gun control. In grand principle, I don't particularly care who owns what. But when talking about the real world, yes I would support forcible confiscation of guns from a schizo who refuses to seek treatment or taking away old canisters of nerve gas from someone who shows no real interest in making sure they're well maintained and safe.

So my stance is generally "yes freedom, but at some point whoa wait a moment let's not get too carried away here."

Congratulations, you are a centrist.

I wish I could me more ideological, I would love to believe that if we gave everyone a living wage that the world would be a place of peace, hugs and rainbows.
Unfortunately, I cannot see a single example of a society where peoples work ethic was decoupled from their financial outcomes with any success.
I actually thing that Socialism is a fantastic idea, that can never ever work because of how shitty people truly are.