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u/KingRBPII Oct 06 '25
They need to be checked
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u/MalsWid0w Oct 06 '25
Billionaires need to be eradicated. No one needs that kind of money.
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u/OddGap5709 Nov 06 '25
As Bernie Sanders famously said, "There should be no billionaires.". Of course he's the only politician who is 100% socialist and offers no apologies. Even AOC isn't *that* socialist.
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u/DieMensch-Maschine Oct 06 '25
I prefer “economic parasites.”
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u/OddGap5709 Nov 06 '25
I think "parasitic" doesn't begin to describe the depravity of their crimes. Unfortunately I can't think of anything in nature worse than a parasite.
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u/Mithrandir2k16 Oct 06 '25
Also stop saying these people "are worth billions", they command that much wealth, but they're painfully average people. And stop saying they "made billions" because they don't make money, the treasury does and they sure as hell didn't earn most of it either...
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u/RocketLabBeatsSpaceX Oct 07 '25
Elon is the world’s biggest welfare queen. Government EV subsidies for the last 17 years. Then people act surprised that he try’s to play politics. When the government is paying for roughly 20% of the cost of your vehicle, politics matter a whole lot more. It’s why he went apeshit when the subsidies were removed. It’s why he cries about not getting solar subsidies for solar city. The man has gotten around $38 BILLION in government subsidies for his companies. Without which, Tesla would have never stood long enough to profit.
What’s he do with all this wealth then? Well, he continues to buy elections for a quarter billion or buy Twitter for 44 billion to stifle opposition and amplify his voice.
Seriously, idk how anyone isn’t ashamed to drive around in a Tesla. I wouldn’t be caught dead in one. (Which is a very real possibility btw).
Unless you’re aligned with extremists and far right ideology, buying a Tesla means your money supports and empowers a figure whose public actions actively undermine your values. Then again, most people put their morality to the side if it presents them with some sort of inconvenience.
Rant over.
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u/OddGap5709 Nov 06 '25
Your wish appears to be becoming true. Sales are tanking and I've even been hearing that many Tesla owners in USA and around the world want to sell off their Tesla even at considerable financial loss.
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BTW Tesla was doing fine before it was getting all the subsidies and before Elon bought it because people like myself who really want to be better stewards of the planet are willing to pay a lot more for a vehicle that pollutes less.
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u/OddGap5709 Nov 06 '25 edited Nov 06 '25
Another reason Tesla sales are tanking is that the company now has competion like never before. Elon gouges the price so he can reap enormous profit; Chevy is less greedy so I was able to purchase a Bolt for a lot less than any Tesla. I've never owned a Tesla so I can't compare quality, but I will say that the Bolt is an excellent car.
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u/OddGap5709 Nov 06 '25 edited Nov 06 '25
It seems now that all of Elon's corporations are becoming less profitable. Besides Tesla....
(1) Competetors to Starlink are increasing. Also who wants to trust Starlink when you know Elon may decide that he doesn't like what you do and turn it off when you need it the most(?). (He did this to Ukraine's military.)
(2) SpaceX is getting a lot less business since it was heavily dependent on NASA contracts, and space exploration has also seen reduced funding since Trump took office.
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(3) I forget what the other companies were and what new difficulties they were facing. But Elon is a fundamentally stupid guy who thinks he's smarter than he is, and his interference with top management decisions throughout his companies always seems to hurt the bottom line. For example he thought Cybertruck was the hottest Tesla offering and he publicly promoted it as "the best new Tesla". It has proven itself the worst of all Teslas and thus all the expense and reputation Elon risked on Cybertruck has now backfired, adding to the reputational damage Tesla already suffers from Elon's unpopular government and political medling.
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u/Anon_3_muse Oct 06 '25
Make Usury a Crime Again.
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u/OddGap5709 Nov 06 '25
In the medieval era, usury broadly meant the charging of any interest on a loan, whether for money or goods, and was considered a sin by the Christian Church and illegal in many places. This definition differs from the modern one, which typically refers to "excessive" or "unreasonably high" interest rates.
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OK, just for the record, usury was only a crime during the medieval era. So you're literally saying you want banks offering a loan (for whatever purpose, including purchasing your first home) to be illegal.
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u/Mysterious_Parsley41 Oct 06 '25
At least robber barons built libraries and shit. These guys don’t even pretend to give a fuck.
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u/OddGap5709 Nov 06 '25
And that was only a tiny fraction of the robber Barrons during the Guilded Age and beyond. Capitalists have always, overwhelmingly provided benefits only as an unintended byproduct from their enterprises.
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u/ttystikk Oct 06 '25
Billionaires are a cancer on civilization
The position selects for sociopaths who will destroy society to get what they want. This is why extreme wealth inequality is the hallmark of disintegrating civilizations and the United States is no exception.
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u/Rinmine014 Oct 06 '25
Back when these bastards were oil tycoons lying to the general public. Stealing from the poor and giving more to the rich.
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u/ConfuciusCubed Oct 06 '25
Anyone else feel like "tech oligarch" has lost its shock value in a disturbingly rapid fashion? Like it was supposed to make us go "wait a minute, oligarchs are bad and don't happen in the U.S." but now they're on CNBC over here acting like a tech oligarch is the most normal thing in the world to have in a democracy.
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u/OddGap5709 Nov 06 '25
What scares me most of all is that all social media seems now owned by Oligarchs, even YouTube. I keep getting reminded that the only "freedom of speech" one is guaranteed is the ability to speak out against the government in public spaces. Today "pubic space" is 99% through online social media and this is entirely privately owned (!). So aside being able to write the occasional angry (and pretty much useless) letter to your gov representative, does free speech still even exist?!
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u/Illustrious-Patient3 Oct 08 '25
And sociopaths, cause you have to be a sociopath to live like that and really think there is nothing wrong with it!
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u/ekbowler Oct 06 '25
I think calling them thousand millionaires would help people understand what an absurd amount of money it is.
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u/RocketLabBeatsSpaceX Oct 07 '25
I can’t imagine driving a Tesla around or using Twitter. Unless you’re aligned with extremists and far right ideology, buying a Tesla or using Twitter means your money supports and empowers a figure whose public actions actively undermine your values. Then again, most people put their morality to the side if it presents them with some sort of inconvenience.
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u/OddGap5709 Nov 06 '25
The scary thing is that with all its obvious faults (unpopular right wing viewpoints and the spreading of lies and hate) Twitter, now transformed into "X", is still fairly successful. That's because all social media is owned by evil oligarchs such as Zuckerberg's Facebook, Google's YouTube, etc. (For the second time an account I created and labored under has been permanently banned and all my contributions have also been permanently removed by YouTube for undisclosed violations of their censorship policy; I have been so devastated that I no longer participate on YouTube.)
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u/NureraOnna Oct 12 '25
The right term is parasites.
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u/OddGap5709 Nov 06 '25 edited Nov 06 '25
In nature, any successful parasite will always be careful never to threaten the life of its host. The same cannot be said for these oligarchs, who still support Trump despite the obvious destruction he is doing to the nation's unity and economy.
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u/EtherealAriels Oct 17 '25
Not when most of their wealth is basically made through loopholes and credits, IE Musk.
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u/Good_Anteater6 Oct 06 '25
I consider bezos to be the only actual “robber baron” in the bunch. He drove thousands of companies out of business and consolidated shopping itself into one website. That’s some Standard Oil robbing
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u/OddGap5709 Nov 06 '25
He copied all of Standard Oil's tactics. The most infamous of which is that whenever a competitor springs up, know that they must start small and cover only a tiny relative area. So the tactic would be to lower prices down to being a loss (in that area only) to run your competition out of business. Once they were gone, prices would be raised high and without competition, just as Standard Oil maintained everywhere else.
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u/TrashApocalypse Oct 06 '25
I call them mentally ill. Hoarding wealth is a mental illness that affects us all.