US agencies are definitely not toothless, full autonomy to act as they wish since the first Patriot act. Most annoyingly, no one managed to remove those powers.

> Most annoyingly, no one managed to remove those powers.

Or not renew them, each September since 2001, like clockwork.

The ongoing state of emergency enables such otherwise temporary powers.

Well the problem is the definition of `Billionaires`. China's model is closer to typical corrupt authoritarian states like Russia where the government officials are the Real Billionaires. They have real power and capitals over those people like Jack Ma. They just need to move a finger and you will see the transfer of the capital. The billionaires are never eliminated. Just money change hands.

It's just that they are just less exposed in the global media, even as a forbidden topic in China's media. It's not hard to imagine how rich Xi actually is, he is basically Putin.

So when we are on the topic of `eliminate billionaires`, especially in the context in the country like China, the question becomes: which billionaires? ;)

Incidentally, this is the reason that self custody of wealth (power) that bitcoin enables anonymously is important. In a ww3, the us could simply take out the ccp leadership. But in a decentralized capitalistic society run by anonymous bitcoin trillionaires, you couldn’t even find who to attack. While the trillionaires would continue to be able to execute their tasks under the rules of economics.

A capitalist society run by anonymous bitcoin trillionaires sounds like the worst kind of dystopia imaginable.

Also the bitcoin trillionaires would control the whole network. So not a real decentralization.

> u.s. Agencies who have to kindly ask Elon not to make them look pathetic and toothless on Twitter every once in a while

source?