No ones saying otherwise, what we're saying is raise the taxes to something reasonable.

>You have equal access to the same infrastructure. Feel free to start a trillion dollar company.

And this is such a lazy cop-out that ignores that Bezos had parents who funded his company (to the tune of half a million in today's money) during a time where he was in the right place at the right time. It insane how ignorant people are to how much luck in one's situation plays into their success. I'm not saying he isn't a talented businessman, but that alone is never enough to reach his level of success.

Who cares if he had parents invest in his company?!? Why do people jump to that immediately trying to prove what an “evil” guy he is. Guess what...Bezos’s parents paid their taxes on their incomes and saved the money and chose to invest in their son. Why is that a negative? Right place at the right time - there were millions of people in their 20’s in the late 90’s, thousands had $250,000 in cash to start a business, but only 1 turned into the biggest most efficient company in history. It wasn’t luck man, it was talent. The ignorance seems to be on your end believing it was luck.

I'm not saying he is evil or that he doesn't deserve his success, I'm addressing his point that Bezos isn't just a product of his own talents, but that of his situation and the opportunities he was provided by our society.

That's the case for literally everyone in our society. Can I take your money then, since you're a product of a society I contributed to?

If you make less money than the parent does, and live in the same country, than you essentially are taking their money, through their higher tax burden that pays for services (like roads and public schools and firefighters) that you almost certainly use or benefit from.

And that's a good thing! But I think higher earners should have more money taken than is currently the case. Wealth and income inequality are largely a result of luck and opportunity, not raw talent. An equitable society should find ways to mitigate those effects, which have only gotten worse in recent decades, not better.

Absolutely. In fact, I make more than most Americans ($300k household income) and I wouldn't mind more progressive tax brackets, especially if it meant we could provide our fellow countrymen with basic necessities like healthcare and continued education. My voting record reflects this sentiment. The funny thing is, Bezos has a lower tax rate than me and he's a billionaire.

Uhm yes? Thanks for understanding my point.

Thats an opportunity provided by his parents, not "society". If he owes anyone then it's them.

I’d love to have had parents who could afford to dump $1m into my fledgeling startup.

That he did proves he owes others for his success as much as his own wits and hard work.

Right, he owes his parents as established. They likely owe their parents, who owe their parents. And there were certainly others that contributed along the way may or may not have been compensated for that help. But none of these people had help from an amorphous group of "society", they had help from specific individuals.

So none of them went to public schools or used public roads or relied on a fire department. Probably none of them could look forward to social security or medicare.

Or maybe that's not correct.

Everyone on Earth owes some of their success to their parents.

VCs hand out millions to all sorts of companies that fail, every single day. This is another common talking point that holds no water. I'll give you $250K (or $500K equivalent) myself if you bet your life on turning it into a billion, let alone a trillion.

Taxes barely go to roads and infrastructure they go to welfare and warfare.

Would you say that it's reasonable that if you start a business, you get to keep 10% of the value created?

If you start a business, even a billion dollars is an unimaginable amount of money and a reward far greater than any other job in existence. People forget how insanely large a billion dollars is. If that isn't reward enough, then no amount is.