If Bezos sold all of his stock in Amazon, well, for one he'd certainly be worth a lot less fairly rapidly as the stock collapsed based on his massive sale of it.
He's taxed on the sale of his stock as far as I understand it, although the capital gains tax should presumably be higher than the tax on earned wages.
It seems sensible that when you're putting hours in, you'd get taxed at a lower rate than someone whose money made them more money.
But... if Bezos has 10 million shares and they're worth 100 billion dollars, do you... take his shares away even if he's not selling them just because his assets are worth more than a billion dollars?
I think it's fair to say the current state of affairs where his employees are working at barely livable wages and getting carted away in ambulances from his warehouses is certainly untenable.
At that point the federal government needs to step in and say that these places aren't paying these workers enough to live a comfortable lifestyle and support a family.
It's too bad the extremely wealthy are also so able to pervert our systems of governance through lobbying efforts which they can afford.
You can't use the stock based wealth without asking it, unless you take out a loan with the stock as collateral.
Stealing partly from someone else I can't find a reference for:
Ownership capped at 1 billion, you get a sticker saying "I won capitalism" and all further growth and income goes to the government for social programs. You get a new ticker that estimates lives saved and people homes/fed/educated - that becomes your new boasting figure.
Not entirely serious but extreme wealth should be considered a bug. Perhaps it's true that the best system overall always results in this but it's worth considering that it might not be.
Since Forbes is the default scoreboard perhaps when it makes its Billionaires List, instead of a basic sort ranked by on net worth, Forbes should incorporate Environmental, Social and Governance like factors similar to those starting to be used for Equity investing [1] and do a final ranking based on ESG*net worth.
More importantly though, it's not a precise tax plan it's intended to show the absurdity of the outcome we currently have rather than show a particular way out. That the answers are often "but there would be loopholes" rather than "having people amass much more wealth is inherently good for us all" is telling.
Edit - though, they do. They already do. Not at the same level but they do let the government take their money.
And also, how else would they increase their score on the next level?
Consider for a moment what privileges would have to attach to this sticker, in order for the billionaires to let this through Congress. Definitely they would still want to have control of dominant cultural narratives, and they'd still want to write all the laws, and those of them who appreciate fabulous personal possessions would still appreciate those. The administration of this sticker would be quite complicated...
But that would be a lie since most of that money/value was created by other people, most likely their employees.
Second, the only way you can argue they created more value than the founder of the company is in aggregate. But they also likely made more money than the founder in aggregate. A company tries to pay employees based on the value they bring. If a CEO makes 10,000,000/year, it's probably because the company thinks that CEO is worth it (adds more value than that). So it's silly to point out that the 1000 engineers below him add more value in aggregate. Why, yes.. they also get paid way more than 10,000,000/year in aggregate.
And if the CEO/founder flat out owns the company then all this talk is irrelevant. It's theirs. They can do what they want. If they hired people to build the company for them and the people agreed, good for them. Sounds like a beneficial negotiation for both parties.
Edit: I'm not necessarily arguing for or against the existence of billionaires. That's a tough problem that I don't think I know the answer to. I'm just saying that pointing out that "employees add the real value to the company" is a dumb argument.
Secondly, it’s just laughably wrong to suggest that a “company tries to pay employees based on the value they bring”. Employees are paid what they need to be paid in order to get them to work there. No more, no less. A sweatshop worker might bring much more value than the cents they are paid, and a programmer might bring much more value than their 100K salary would suggest (see e.g. no-poach agreements between Google and other big companies).
(Seriously. Cite on economist that claims that “company tries to pay employees based on the value they bring”.)
And risk is irrelevant to the question of value. If someone wins a billion dollars, should we thank them for their hard work if they donate it to charity? Maybe for the money, but it would be misleading to conflate speculation/gambling with work.
You are so fundamentally misguided that it’s just laughable.
People who created enormous value in the past were rich but not filthy rich and that was not their goal in the first place. Most of them were happy enough to be paid back in respect, recognition, credit, fanfare, veneration etc..
What people are you referring to? I've read a fair amount about the gilded age robber barons and such. They were definitely not content to be paid back in "respect, recognition, fanfare". In fact that is more of a distraction and nuisance, and occasionally a liability or danger. The sorts of business practices used in the past to amass and keep wealth make anything today look like kiddie stuff.
Rockefeller's net worth was about 2% of US GDP. IIRC, that's still a record.