It’s Shopify’s Tobi Lutke.
A reminder that he’s behind Build Canada and Build Toronto, and that Build Toronto’s Eric Lombardi is running for the Ontario Librral Party leadership as we speak.
When you said “under fire” I thought you meant literally, as in there is a squad of soldiers currently training their machine guns on the lad’s home.
One could dream
I actually find his idea of weighed voting based on tax paid a good idea. But then percentage wise based on wealth. So if you pay 2% wealth tax you get 2 votes, if you pay 50% you get 50 votes.
Awwww too bad billionaires don’t / barely pay taxes. No votes for those arrogant rich assholes. Now we can vote to arrest billionaires who don’t pay taxes, imprison them for tax evasion and take away their wealth which can be used to improve quality of life of the general public.
But they already do that. Its called lobbying.
Assuming Tobi Lutke makes at least 8% roi on his investments, he could give every homeless person in canada 20grand a year using just the interest.
Yeah, solving homelessness actually wouldn’t cost that much. Juuust enough that nobody wants to pay for it. And then there’s the matter of putting them somewhere, when NIMBYs are everywhere…
I just want world wide wealth caps. 10 million is the max that any person canboen or control. Any additional income after that goes 100% straight to taxes.
This simple rule has wide spread implications from ending poverty to likely ending wars, removing power from narcissist politicians, and souch more
A 100% income tax means there’s no incentive to remove profits from a business beyond that income, since you can’t spend any of it, so it will just encourage increased accounting trickery to justify “business expenses” for things like purchasing private islands, sports cars, and luxury vacations.
80% is high enough; for every $10 million they withdraw for personal spending, they keep 2, and the other $8 million would go to pay for the services requested to run the rest of the country that enables them to produce their wealth. (Including all their employees and customers.)
Then we still benefit from the efficiencies inherent in the profit motive while having the ultra wealthy pay their fair share.
I might argue that if any single individual is in the position to collect $10M+/year, the economic system is already dysfunctional. That individual is operating as a gatekeeper rather than a value center and the position they occupy needs to be broken up and reorganized.
I could imagine a top surgeon or pro athlete legitimately earning that much from their own labor alone.
a top surgeon
Tops are a dime a dozen. Bottom surgery is where the big money is at.
a top surgeon or pro athlete
Entertainers and life savers are very different categories of value to society.
They also dress differently
That was a wealth tax, not a tax on income. So, nobody would be worth more than 10 million, and earning 10 million is almost out of the question. That means you can’t own a huge business by yourself to start with.
Get a high salary, “lose it” on crypto, retire in Belize.
Well, the “get a high salary” part is definitely doing most of the hard work.
That being said, yes, there’d still be a way, if you’re patient, have the income and don’t care about legality. There’d be a risk of getting caught, which always scales with the amount you’ve hidden. But, maybe you’re smarter than the next white-collar criminal.
If the point is to flatten out the class system, this policy would do it, though.
Yes. but corruption always exists. Caps just push that wealth underground. There are no simple answers like that.
In the 1970’s, $1 million and you were rich.Today, it’s $10 million and even that is less than a lottery win. The limit would have to be $100 million.
The multimillionaires would end inflation very quickly.
The hell they would. Inflation is what makes them multimillionaires. Once you become that rich, inflation does not affect you. 89%of your income gores to investments, things you WANT to increase in price.
Inflation would steadily decrease their real wealth cap. Wealth includes investments.
Wrong.Inflation increases the value of their investments. The stock market relies completely on inflation to increase profits. Every inflationary increase directly results in increase profits. That is the purpose of inflation.
Why?
Why 100 million?
I get that the number of 10 million is arbitrary, hell, I just semi randomly picked it, but a 10 million net worth gets you A LOT more than you actually need.
Why allow 100 million, though? 10 million is more than any person would need to love an actually full life with travel and plenty of whatever, and you could still invest some money in a small company. Want a bigger one? Join a bunch of people and make a bigger one.
100 million gets into the range where youncan project power over others and that is the entire thing that got us where we are. No person should hold large amounts of power, humanity has shown over and over that that is a very bad idea.
On it’s own that won’t end poverty, but coupled with something like a basic income it could. It would definitely end all the extreme wealth stupidity, and if it was retroactive nobody could really flee with their wealth, like they might manage to with a lesser wealth tax.
You might want to go up to 15, though. There’s bound to be some sympathetic retiree couple with a house in inner Vancouver.
Better idea - only the middle class can vote.
The middle class already decides most elections because politicians target the middle class as a voting bloc.
This is why housing prices always seem to trend up: middle class wealth is concentrated in their family home.
This is also why there’s so much government funding for universities (public universities). The middle class disproportionately benefit from it. Taxes on working class people to pay for higher education that their own children don’t benefit from are regressive taxes. Basically a wealth transfer from the working class to the middle class.
They may determine the outcome of elections, but they don’t determine what outcomes the outcome chases. That’s the lobbyists
The outcomes are what favour them though.
People who have a good job, plenty of vacation days, 2 cars, own their own home, couple of kids, money saved for school and retirement… these folks are not all that upset about billionaires.
They may be dumb, but they are also affected by housing prices, oil prices, service cuts, taxes raised. They still don’t get politicians that do good for them, just like rest of the bottom 50%
They aren’t better off because of who is elected even if you are accurate and they are the ones that determine the outcome of the elections. The elected politicians still don’t persue the interests of the middle-class. The middleclass may simply be the most complacent because they are too afraid of becoming one of the Poors they seem to hate so much
Crabs in a goddamned bucket
That’s the thing though. Beyond a certain point, people don’t care that much about being “better off.” If they have it all, they have it all, and they’re content. I don’t think they’re afraid either. Fear is mostly the burden of the working class.
In Canad, there is no wealth transfer from the lower class to the middle class through taxes. The wealth transfer all occurs at the retail and rental sectors.
I live in Canada. That’s not true. Higher education is heavily subsidized here, yet many of the paths (STEM majors at the top schools) are essentially closed for all but the most gifted of working class students.
Once you realize how skewed education is based on socioeconomic status, you see how little the working class benefit from having their tax dollars go to pay for higher education.
" many of the paths (STEM majors at the top schools)" I am not sure what you mean by that. Entrance to the top schools is by marks. You have the marks, you get in. Does not matter what income level you have.
Income level is highly correlated with high school grades. Students from poor households are far more likely to fall below standards on reading, writing, mathematics, and science.
Except for East Asian students in the Canadian system. There is obviously something more than economic status that is going on. It is also a cultural thing. In households were education is a priority and expectations are higher, such as the East Asian culture, the gap is diminished.
There are plenty of low income Asian students who do not do so well in school. They just don’t live in Canada. Asian students who live in Canada are from a highly selected group of migrant families.
No, EVERYBODY can vote. It is your most basic right as an American citizen, and it should never be removed for any reason.
We should be automatically registered to vote on the day we are born, and that automatically validates on your 18th birthday. You literally have to do nothing, no IDs, nothing. You have the right to vote simply by being an American citizen, period.
And your right to vote shouldn’t be removed for any reason at all. Even serial killers in prison should be able to vote. Prisoners need representation as much as anyone, probably more.
The right to vote should be sacrosanct, and even the discussion of suppressing votes by candidates should be illegal. That is not a subject for debate.
OTOH, the idea that corporation can vote is an abomination, and politicians who attempt such nonsense should be dealt with harshly. Hear that Delaware?
True, but this is Canada
Another fucking American telling Canadians what’s what
This is a Canadian site. Canadians are SO not interested in the ‘basic rights’ of Americans. You just do not understand democracy. You vote for who is going to be the dictator for the next four years.
I already politely apologized for missing which sub I was in.
As you can perhaps tell, Canadians are rather sensitive about American politics and the American governance system right now. Something about Trump insisting we become the 51st State. There is absolutely no way in hell Canadians would agree to be governed under the American electoral system.
Every Canadian citizen over 18 is allowed to vote, no voter registration necessary, no need to qualify or establish our right to vote. What is required (and even then there are alternative pathways to vote) is that we get on the voter’s list for a particular riding. This is to prevent multiple votes by an individual voting in multiple ridings. At the polling station, you are crossed off the list so you can only vote once. However, every attempt is made to ensure you are on a voters’ list. Previously, enumerators went door to door (EVERY door in the country) to list EVERY eligible voter in the household. If there was no answer, they returned to that door as often as necessary in order to get an answer. The enumerators were paid per voter they put on the list, so there was definitely an incentive to get every voter. Then, the list was scrutinized by every political party to ensure every eligible voter was on the list, and there were no ‘fake’ voters on it. It was displayed publicly (usually on a telephone pole) so everyone in the community could check it over. Yes, that was VERY expensive. but it ensured the voters list was as accurate as humanly possible. Now, the voter’s list is kept current through our Federal tax form. On that form, we can indicate that we want Revenue Canada to submit our updated information to Elections Canada (an neutral agency, totally independent of the government, that is charged with the responsibility to run our elections) in order to keep the voters list accurate. If someone does not file an Income Tax Form, there are alternative ways to get on the list. It is very unusual for someone who wants to vote to not get on the list. Under no circumstances would we ever give up this basic right to vote in order to comply with the American ‘restrict the vote fudge the system’ process.
We like our system, we are quite proud of it, and very protective of preserving it. It is one of the few things that can actually get Canadians to respond very rudely if an outsider tries to tell us how we should run our elections.
Sincere thanks for the education! Once again, your system leaves ours in the dust.
Again, my post was aimed at Americans, because I just responded to a post, without taking the time to see who the larger audience was. At least you got to see that not all Americans are cool with all the nonsense that’s happening down here, and want to see changes.
I know that it is very, very difficult to get Americans to consider that there is a better system than the one they have, so the kudos are much appreciated. I just wish, as an advocate for true democracy, that more Americans could become more world-aware.
What middle class?
In Canada we very much have a middle class. Mostly because of two income households.
Devils advocate, but given this was a two word response to another tweet, it’s possible that something was misinterpreted here. For instance that response could be about billionaires who pay no taxes losing their right to vote (which I can get onboard with). This kind of just feels like rage bait.
Counter-argument: the interpretation is not out of character for Tobias. He’s got a history of assholery, and does not deserve the benefit of the doubt.
I would generally agree with you, but here I don’t.
Tobi has always been blunt and kinda rude, but he was smart, usually right (and readily admitted when he wasn’t), and willing to do hard things that other people wouldn’t.
He’s done more for Canadian tech than anyone else in the last 15 years and it’s not even close.
So he is worth hearing out even with initial hard disagreement.
This one is pretty hard to defend. It’s an obviously bad take, especially for someone who preaches systems thinking. It’s too short for it to be nuanced.
We all post dumb shit sometimes and when you’re famous it’s amplified, but this one is very dumb. I wish for the good of Shopify and himself that Tobi would spend less time on twitter… this is just bad for business.
In my opinion, Tobi changed sometime in the last few years since Covid and it’s been hard to agree with him much since.
Under fire? Put him in the fire.
A slow burning fire
This is the same company that simps for PP and MAGA
Why is everyone that has worked on Ruby on Rails a total and utter douchebag? should be studied how that one project seems to have spawned some of the biggest bigoted asshole douches in the tech industry.
Lutke is a moron just like DHH is a moron and surprise surprise they’re both from RoR.
Maybe naming projects based on expensive pebbles attracts people with an affinity for signs of wealth?
Has he considered that voting is free, but bullets are cheap? If he were smart, he’d be wary of taking the ballot box out of the equation.
This is Canada, nobody is going to shoot him. Getting torn apart by a mob is not out of the equation though.
Slathered in maple syrup, rolled in worms and fed to a bloodthirsty swarm of Canada geese.
They keep talking like that and “the poors” might have to do something about it. There’s a historical precedent. At the end of the day there a lot more of us than there will ever be of them.
“Poors under fire for thinking that killing billionaires should be legal”.
I used to work at Shopify. Wouldn’t recommend it.
Anything you can share without doxxing yourself too much?
Financial obesity is an existential threat to any society that tolerates it, and needs to cease being celebrated, rewarded, and positioned as an aspirational goal.
Corporations are the only ‘persons’ which should be subjected to capital punishment, but trillionaires should be forced to transition into billionaires, and billionaires should be euthanised through taxation.
I just want world wide wealth caps. 10 million is the max that any person canboen or control. Any additional income after that goes 100% straight to taxes.
This simple rule has wide spread implications from ending poverty to likely ending wars, removing power from narcissist politicians, and souch more
Financial obesity
I love it.
I love that term
I feel like this is a copypasta from somewhere. I think I saw it before I need to start using it.
I throw it at any thread I find relating to financial inequality.
It’s lazy, but it’s honest work.
No one should vote. Representative democracy by popular vote isn’t an effective way to administrate a nation.
Bring back qualified sortition.
For those downvoting, Sortion isn’t such a bad idea. Its basically a lottery to put a group of people in charge. I honestly think 100 random Canadians probably would do a better job than career politicians only out for themselves and the corporations funding them.
And importantly, a group of people who have already been identified as qualified for the specific office in question through experience or education.
We need to stop letting bankers and business owners run our country, then act surprised when they run it with profit and economic growth as their primary focus…
We also have the technological infrastructure for more reliable direct democracy. I would love to see everyone over the age a majority issued a smart device (phone, tablet, whatever) where the administration could push plainly worded surveys daily or weekly to solicit public feedback on relevant issues to help direct prioritization.
I like the idea of a Technocracy with highly paid 4 year terms selected by lottery. It should not be hard to be an expert just 10 years works experience or any post-secondary would work. About 25% of the population is what I would call malicious voters. They don’t want progress, they just want bad things to happen to people they don’t like. The 75% of normal people would cancel their evil out. The end result is you be ruled by the majority and they would have a guaranteed level of knowledge. You need to be highly paid because your term could trash your career if it hit at the wrong time.
I’m also a fan of Technocracy, but I’ve almost never seen that well received.
It can sound elitist. However in a Technocratic society, education should be provided for free, giving nobody an advantage over anyone else as far as power to rule goes.
If you 10 random people from your city in a room, how many people could come to an agreement on something to improve their collective lives? Direct democracy can be scary but I do trust at least 70% of my equal peers to help everyone. In that system individualism is a failed concept because it gains you nothing.
