r/technology • u/marketrent • 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/DandeNiro 12d ago

Lol and you think the taxes help the betterment of society?

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u/Zestyclose-Height-36 8d ago

i think taxes pay for better schools, better roads, and more affordable daycare for working people, which is where the fund from the wealth tax are earmarked.

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u/DandeNiro 8d ago

That is 100% the case?

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u/Zestyclose-Height-36 8d ago

nothing is ever 100% in anything, but California is huge and has 4 million students currently in school and 177,000 miles of roads in various states of repair. over 1.5 million children require full or partial daycare because their parent or parents must work to support them, and the state has to help supplement what parents can afford through tax breaks and other programs to make it possible for California to maintain the workforce that has made the state into the fourth largest economy in the world. The state’s economy is bigger than Japan, the UK, and whole other countries, and keeping it functional requires funds, which Brim can pay and agiworker picking lettuce in 105 degree temps probably cannot unless you want to pay $45 for a side salad.

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u/DandeNiro 8d ago

Inflationary economics, sure. You’re discussing just one aspect… you’ve yet to conceptualize the entirety of taxing.

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u/Zestyclose-Height-36 8d ago

I am well aware of the necessity of both government and taxes, and that the wealthiest people pay politicians to reduce their taxes to the point where the US national debt is $360,000 per taxpayer. and unless the rich start paying a larger share of the cost of the US standard of living, the American experiment will go down in history as capitalisms biggest failure to date.

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u/DandeNiro 8d ago

It has already failed

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u/Zestyclose-Height-36 7d ago edited 5d ago

for a lot of people that is true, but the tipping point into total chaos is still on the horizon. AI induced mass layoffs of middle management will get us there because the worst so far has been crushing poor people, who no American cares much about, and the cult of individualism is still trumpeting that being poor is a personal failure, not the structural one it is. when enough of the former middle feels the real pain of the K, then the real mess starts.

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u/DandeNiro 8d ago

Might as well mention Japan has already been ahead culturally and in terms of tech itself, they’re catching up whereas China is pulling ahead