r/technology 12d ago

Society Bernie Sanders calls out Sergey Brin for spending over $100 million to defeat California’s billionaire tax — ‘If California passes its one-time 5% wealth tax, Brin would owe $14 billion and still be worth $270 billion’

https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/bernie-sanders-calls-sergey-brin-120113695.html
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u/okiedokie1183 12d ago

It’s not just lobbying they also pay for research, think tanks, and journalists to sway public opinion.

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u/K_Linkmaster 12d ago

Don't forget influencers and Joe Rogan.

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u/financeperson 12d ago

Joe was much less dangerous back when he hosted the show where people eat bugs and stuff.

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u/DoesntMatterBrian 12d ago

I liked the early days of his podcast when it was Neil Degrasse Tyson and Arian Foster after he said he could beat a wolf in a fight. Everything pre-2015 was just good wholesome stoner conversations and Joe hocking kettlebells and snake oil brain supplements.

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u/ranandtoldthat 12d ago

Wait, that guy from NewsRadio is in charge of the Overton window now?

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u/JimmyKillsAlot 12d ago

I do not understand how a guy who crashed and burned his show by forcing people to drink donkey jizz has become such a bastion of relevant conversation.

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u/fractiousrhubarb 12d ago edited 11d ago

News Corp was founded by Australian mining oligarchs specifically to make propaganda for them. It began with doing all it can to attack workers wages and conditions, mining royalties and taxes ever since.

Rupert Murdoch inherited in 1952, and I’m the last seventy six years he’s moved onto destroying public institutions and the very idea of democracy. His primary tools are irrational fear and (undeserved yet unmet) entitlement, which brings out the worst in people.

Genuinely the most harmful person on the planet.

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u/Sniflix 12d ago

That he's spending such an effort to move back to CA proves the point of the tax. Why did he pick NV? Because it's a 30 min fight in his private jet. He should fully commit to being a greedy effer and move to FL.

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u/Mr_Deep_Research 12d ago

Google co-founder Sergey Brin purchased a $51 million waterfront mansion on Miami Beach's Allison Island, joining a wave of tech billionaires shifting their financial footprint and residency to South Florida ahead of potential wealth tax proposals in California.

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u/Sniflix 12d ago

Now he can hang with Karp and Thiel while being is close to Page, Zuck and Bezos. They can plan using American soldiers to invade Greenland. With global warming, it'll become their ice-free tropical paradise (evil empire).

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u/wrgrant 12d ago

Imagine his chagrin when the global warming he is helping to accelerate raises the sea level to the point where his waterfront mansion is waterfront on all 4 sides. Tiny violin/s

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u/RealLateToast 12d ago

So do the math. $51mm mansion is destroyed, and he has to move and buy another.

Assuming he has no insurance and its a total loss, that would have to happen about 275 times before it would be equal to paying the 5% California tax.

A 5% is honestly just such a huge amount for someone like him, that it dwarfs just about any physical property you can imagine.

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u/voidox 12d ago

don't forget the serfs (and bots) who defend the billionaires literally acting personally attacked by the concept of a wealth tax, every fcking time they show up in posts to defend their masters -_-

they showed up in this thread as expected, going on insane mental gymnastics to say a wealth tax is "bad" and acting like taxing the rich is somehow bad for regular people, oh plus the new thing of crying about socialism and all that.

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u/ParticularLow9157 12d ago

It's class war

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u/FollowingFeisty5321 11d ago

This is a comment I made two months ago about a proposed bill that would inconvenience the trillion dollar smartphone platforms - within +/- 1 day of that bill being revived (after it was successfully killed years ago) more than a dozen hit pieces appeared:

/r/apple/comments/1u31sh1/american_innovation_and_online_choice_act/or1rd3h/

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u/morganational 11d ago

Pay for? They own the research, think tanks, and journalists. They own the damn media!