I'm not seeing eat the rich? I thought we were going to eat the rich? Is eating the rich not a thing anymore? It's not that I really want to eat the rich, I just thought that was where we were going, to eat the rich. And it wasn't eat all the rich. And we won't eat the rich that don't really look all that appetizing. Like I would never eat Trump. Trump is that cow with mad cow disease that you don't eat along with every other cow that has come in contact with it. But that cuts out a lot of rich not getting eaten. Well, Trump is a germaphobe so maybe he doesn't have Mad Cow disease so maybe we can eat him and everybody around him. Maybe eating Trump would be like eating a Walmart brand foie gras with all the fat he eats. Trump's liver has to be so fatty so that would be a pretty good liver to eat maybe. Or because he drinks so much Coke, eating Trump could taste like a backyard ceviche made last minute for a kid's birthday. What I'm saying is that maybe eating the rich shouldn't be off the table* completely. Except Musk. Never eat Musk. I'm pretty sure he's just one giant stink gland.
We do need national legislation however, so the financial people will quit harping about billionaires being forced to leave blue states because of the taxes.
yes, there is of course no way for you to make more money and make less money because of taxation, but of course many do not have the luxury of competency regarding finances in general...
Ta, Robyn. On top of taxing wealth (especially inherited wealth) as if it were income, I'm all for (1) removing the Social Security cap, (2) a tiny transaction tax for every Wall Street trade, (3) truly universal healthcare, including vision, dental, and hearing, and (4) if (1) (2) and (3) do not succeed, tumbrel rides to the guillotines. The uber rich have gotten away with far too much for far too long. Repeal Citizens United, and tax the motherfuckers fairly.
Billionaires should be subjected to a wealth tax of 50% of all wealth no matter the source. For every additional $5 billion in wealth, the tax should go up at least an additional 1% until it tops out at 95%.
While taxing the rich is all well and good, I think a lot of people would be happier if the Minimum Wage was raised to a living level. A lot of people still hold to the idea that since they don't have children or aging parents why should they vote to fund these programs for other people. Hiking the minimum wage puts real money in their pocket. That's something they can understand.
Every tool humanity has ever made has carried two truths: it can build, and it can destroy. Fire cooks food and burns cities. Steel plows fields and cuts throats. Code, too, carries this double edge.
Blockchain was born as a rebellion. A declaration that trust should not belong to a handful of banks, governments, or corporations, but be spread across millions of nodes transparent, unbreakable, incorruptible. For a moment, it felt like a revolution.
And in the right hands, it has been.
In conflict zones, digital coins have funded ambulances and meals when traditional aid froze. In grassroots cooperatives, tokens have allowed neighbors to share food, energy, and labor with dignity instead of charity. In supply chains, blockchain has traced coffee beans and cocoa pods from farmer to table, ensuring real wages reach the grower.
These are ledgers of trust. Proof that code can widen the circle of survival.
But not all ledgers are written in trust.
For every grassroots success, there has been a collapse built on greed. FTX, once hailed as a twenty-first century empire, evaporated overnight $32 billion in value revealed to be smoke and mirrors. Other schemes promised liberation, but delivered only speculation, fraud, and billion-dollar rug pulls.
These are ledgers of greed. Proof that code can replicate every flaw of Wall Street, only faster.
The lesson is simple. Technology does not save us. People do.
A blockchain is only as honest as the intentions of those who use it. A token can carry dignity or deception. The same code that builds a commons can build a casino.
That is why the question is not whether crypto is good or bad. The question is whether it serves. Whether it circulates essentials food, water, energy, housing or whether it chases illusions.
Because every ledger leaves a record. Every chain tells a story. And history will ask: when we were handed this new tool, did we write greed again? Or did we finally write trust?
The Dragon’s Hoard
What’s the sense of holding all that wealth if it cannot create more wealth?
For centuries, fortunes have been built, hidden, and hoarded. Gold in vaults. Oil under deserts. Cash locked in offshore accounts. Wealth piled like dragon treasure brilliant to look at, useless to those who need it most, and shrinking quietly in real value with each passing year.
Today, more than 2,700 billionaires hold over $14 trillion in collective wealth. That sum could end hunger, provide universal water access, build resilient housing, and still grow larger than before. Yet much of it sits idle, parked in safe havens or vanity projects. Yachts, towers, and toys that depreciate the moment they are built.
But there is another way.
What if even a fraction of that wealth 2%, 4%, 10% was placed into a fund designed not only to preserve it, but to multiply it?
The logic is simple. Survival is the most permanent market. Food, water, housing, healthcare, and energy will never go out of demand. Unlike luxury goods or speculative stocks, these markets only expand. And the investor who anchors them does not just buy shares in a company. They buy a stake in the future itself.
This is not philanthropy. This is foresight.
Every percentage invested into the Humanity Fund doubles. Two percent becomes four. Four becomes eight. Ten becomes twenty. Not by magic, but by the most reliable force in finance: compounding returns, anchored in essential markets.
And those who step forward first will not simply be investors. They will be remembered as the ones who turned wealth from hoard into history. They will sit at the Board of Humanity. They will lead not by lobbying presidents, but by shaping the systems presidents depend on. The largest investor becomes the CEO of Humanity by right, by influence, by vision.
That is legacy. That is power.
Because when winter ends, the question will not be who survived. It will be who wrote the spring.
So, the Tesla Board authorized some $1 trillion+ in "compensation" for Elon. The only condition I can come up with is "... only if you stop talking to us and leave us the fuck alone".
Do you own a house? We're getting by. Give us an extra $8000 and we'll remodel the downstairs bathroom. Next year, the upstairs. The year after the kitchen. It's not even close enough to replace the 2011 RAV4, though.
Yikes! I meant put a walk-in shower downstairs, a jacuzzi tub upstairs, and repaint. We bought all new appliances for the kitchen when we moved in, so the kitchen is basically new countertops, maybe a new backsplash, ceiling fan, paint ... And we do have money put away for it. Another $8000 would speed it up.
Point is, people who are getting by are going to spend that money on projects that they've been putting off.
I think all US wage earners should pay some federal income tax, even if it is just a small amount. This gives taxpayers a sense of ownership and responsibility of their country. Being exempt from taxes might make some citizens indifferent about the actions that are taken at taxpayer expense and reduce their sense of agency. The only problem is you have have some way of accounting for the large burden of FICA taxes on wage earners, especially the 15.3 percent tax on self-employed individuals, while still giving them a sense of agency.
Scott Galloway listed all the historic attempts by states and nations to tax the rich beyond their willingness to pay. He says it never works out & the laws change back because there is no more mobile class than billionaires.
They can live anywhere and don't care where, if it means they get to keep more of their assets.
I remember the Beatles discovering they were paying 90 - 95% of their income to Great Britain. (George wrote "Taxman," on Revolver.) Keith Richards said the Stones were paying 98% . Most of them figured out how to legally domicile in a friendlier tax environment ("Maybe you could keep as much as half," it was said, and they left. "So they got NO taxes," said Keef
Yeah, let's MOTHERFUCK a great concept that is totally attractive to the majority of Americans because it is simple and HELPS THEM. It is also a winner because it promotes freedom to spend the money (or not) as one sees fit. That makes it hard for the GOP to argue against it.
The devil's always in the implementation. Going to need to counter a WHOLE LOT of anti-tax propaganda too. Because that is part of the reason why we in America continue to pay more for less.
Also too people need to realize "racism is the reason for the season" and a number of American people believe taxes (even on the wealthy which they consider 'taxing success') are the Federal government taking their "hard-earned" money and giving it to Black people. Consider the pushback to this and anything called "socialism" through that lens and you can see why we can't have nice things.
So far we haven't seen income taxes rise on excessive income (just clawing back unpaid taxes by the billionaire class has been sufficient up to now), but direct payments has boosted the economy.
As it is, the direct payments (to families with school kids, seniors, members of some disadvantaged communities), single parents, etc. ... regardless of their other income did mean a good chunk of that was going into savings, but so what? Banks benefit from higher liquidity, meaning much easier credit for those small businesses that are providing the goods and services people weren't buying before. Win... win... win.
I'm not seeing eat the rich? I thought we were going to eat the rich? Is eating the rich not a thing anymore? It's not that I really want to eat the rich, I just thought that was where we were going, to eat the rich. And it wasn't eat all the rich. And we won't eat the rich that don't really look all that appetizing. Like I would never eat Trump. Trump is that cow with mad cow disease that you don't eat along with every other cow that has come in contact with it. But that cuts out a lot of rich not getting eaten. Well, Trump is a germaphobe so maybe he doesn't have Mad Cow disease so maybe we can eat him and everybody around him. Maybe eating Trump would be like eating a Walmart brand foie gras with all the fat he eats. Trump's liver has to be so fatty so that would be a pretty good liver to eat maybe. Or because he drinks so much Coke, eating Trump could taste like a backyard ceviche made last minute for a kid's birthday. What I'm saying is that maybe eating the rich shouldn't be off the table* completely. Except Musk. Never eat Musk. I'm pretty sure he's just one giant stink gland.
*you see what I did there?
We do need national legislation however, so the financial people will quit harping about billionaires being forced to leave blue states because of the taxes.
yes, there is of course no way for you to make more money and make less money because of taxation, but of course many do not have the luxury of competency regarding finances in general...
Ta, Robyn. On top of taxing wealth (especially inherited wealth) as if it were income, I'm all for (1) removing the Social Security cap, (2) a tiny transaction tax for every Wall Street trade, (3) truly universal healthcare, including vision, dental, and hearing, and (4) if (1) (2) and (3) do not succeed, tumbrel rides to the guillotines. The uber rich have gotten away with far too much for far too long. Repeal Citizens United, and tax the motherfuckers fairly.
Billionaires should be subjected to a wealth tax of 50% of all wealth no matter the source. For every additional $5 billion in wealth, the tax should go up at least an additional 1% until it tops out at 95%.
While taxing the rich is all well and good, I think a lot of people would be happier if the Minimum Wage was raised to a living level. A lot of people still hold to the idea that since they don't have children or aging parents why should they vote to fund these programs for other people. Hiking the minimum wage puts real money in their pocket. That's something they can understand.
Ledgers of Trust and Greed
Every tool humanity has ever made has carried two truths: it can build, and it can destroy. Fire cooks food and burns cities. Steel plows fields and cuts throats. Code, too, carries this double edge.
Blockchain was born as a rebellion. A declaration that trust should not belong to a handful of banks, governments, or corporations, but be spread across millions of nodes transparent, unbreakable, incorruptible. For a moment, it felt like a revolution.
And in the right hands, it has been.
In conflict zones, digital coins have funded ambulances and meals when traditional aid froze. In grassroots cooperatives, tokens have allowed neighbors to share food, energy, and labor with dignity instead of charity. In supply chains, blockchain has traced coffee beans and cocoa pods from farmer to table, ensuring real wages reach the grower.
These are ledgers of trust. Proof that code can widen the circle of survival.
But not all ledgers are written in trust.
For every grassroots success, there has been a collapse built on greed. FTX, once hailed as a twenty-first century empire, evaporated overnight $32 billion in value revealed to be smoke and mirrors. Other schemes promised liberation, but delivered only speculation, fraud, and billion-dollar rug pulls.
These are ledgers of greed. Proof that code can replicate every flaw of Wall Street, only faster.
The lesson is simple. Technology does not save us. People do.
A blockchain is only as honest as the intentions of those who use it. A token can carry dignity or deception. The same code that builds a commons can build a casino.
That is why the question is not whether crypto is good or bad. The question is whether it serves. Whether it circulates essentials food, water, energy, housing or whether it chases illusions.
Because every ledger leaves a record. Every chain tells a story. And history will ask: when we were handed this new tool, did we write greed again? Or did we finally write trust?
The Dragon’s Hoard
What’s the sense of holding all that wealth if it cannot create more wealth?
For centuries, fortunes have been built, hidden, and hoarded. Gold in vaults. Oil under deserts. Cash locked in offshore accounts. Wealth piled like dragon treasure brilliant to look at, useless to those who need it most, and shrinking quietly in real value with each passing year.
Today, more than 2,700 billionaires hold over $14 trillion in collective wealth. That sum could end hunger, provide universal water access, build resilient housing, and still grow larger than before. Yet much of it sits idle, parked in safe havens or vanity projects. Yachts, towers, and toys that depreciate the moment they are built.
But there is another way.
What if even a fraction of that wealth 2%, 4%, 10% was placed into a fund designed not only to preserve it, but to multiply it?
The logic is simple. Survival is the most permanent market. Food, water, housing, healthcare, and energy will never go out of demand. Unlike luxury goods or speculative stocks, these markets only expand. And the investor who anchors them does not just buy shares in a company. They buy a stake in the future itself.
This is not philanthropy. This is foresight.
Every percentage invested into the Humanity Fund doubles. Two percent becomes four. Four becomes eight. Ten becomes twenty. Not by magic, but by the most reliable force in finance: compounding returns, anchored in essential markets.
And those who step forward first will not simply be investors. They will be remembered as the ones who turned wealth from hoard into history. They will sit at the Board of Humanity. They will lead not by lobbying presidents, but by shaping the systems presidents depend on. The largest investor becomes the CEO of Humanity by right, by influence, by vision.
That is legacy. That is power.
Because when winter ends, the question will not be who survived. It will be who wrote the spring.
So, the Tesla Board authorized some $1 trillion+ in "compensation" for Elon. The only condition I can come up with is "... only if you stop talking to us and leave us the fuck alone".
Do you own a house? We're getting by. Give us an extra $8000 and we'll remodel the downstairs bathroom. Next year, the upstairs. The year after the kitchen. It's not even close enough to replace the 2011 RAV4, though.
It cost me just shy of $25K to remodel my only bathroom. I'm looking at close to $30K for the kitchen. Not gonna happen.
My first home cost me $10K.
Yikes! I meant put a walk-in shower downstairs, a jacuzzi tub upstairs, and repaint. We bought all new appliances for the kitchen when we moved in, so the kitchen is basically new countertops, maybe a new backsplash, ceiling fan, paint ... And we do have money put away for it. Another $8000 would speed it up.
Point is, people who are getting by are going to spend that money on projects that they've been putting off.
I think all US wage earners should pay some federal income tax, even if it is just a small amount. This gives taxpayers a sense of ownership and responsibility of their country. Being exempt from taxes might make some citizens indifferent about the actions that are taken at taxpayer expense and reduce their sense of agency. The only problem is you have have some way of accounting for the large burden of FICA taxes on wage earners, especially the 15.3 percent tax on self-employed individuals, while still giving them a sense of agency.
Scott Galloway listed all the historic attempts by states and nations to tax the rich beyond their willingness to pay. He says it never works out & the laws change back because there is no more mobile class than billionaires.
They can live anywhere and don't care where, if it means they get to keep more of their assets.
I remember the Beatles discovering they were paying 90 - 95% of their income to Great Britain. (George wrote "Taxman," on Revolver.) Keith Richards said the Stones were paying 98% . Most of them figured out how to legally domicile in a friendlier tax environment ("Maybe you could keep as much as half," it was said, and they left. "So they got NO taxes," said Keef
Yeah, let's MOTHERFUCK a great concept that is totally attractive to the majority of Americans because it is simple and HELPS THEM. It is also a winner because it promotes freedom to spend the money (or not) as one sees fit. That makes it hard for the GOP to argue against it.
"Hey, what if we try to be Ronald Reagan? That's a winning idea!"
Democrats. Again.
Yeah, this idea is stupid. Helping the American middle class taxpayer is stupid.
Robyn, WONDERFUL—and THANK YOU!!!
The devil's always in the implementation. Going to need to counter a WHOLE LOT of anti-tax propaganda too. Because that is part of the reason why we in America continue to pay more for less.
Also too people need to realize "racism is the reason for the season" and a number of American people believe taxes (even on the wealthy which they consider 'taxing success') are the Federal government taking their "hard-earned" money and giving it to Black people. Consider the pushback to this and anything called "socialism" through that lens and you can see why we can't have nice things.
So far we haven't seen income taxes rise on excessive income (just clawing back unpaid taxes by the billionaire class has been sufficient up to now), but direct payments has boosted the economy.
As it is, the direct payments (to families with school kids, seniors, members of some disadvantaged communities), single parents, etc. ... regardless of their other income did mean a good chunk of that was going into savings, but so what? Banks benefit from higher liquidity, meaning much easier credit for those small businesses that are providing the goods and services people weren't buying before. Win... win... win.