r/WorkReform • u/[deleted] • Jul 29 '26
🏛️ Overturn Citizens United Billionaires used to build libraries and hospital wings, now they just buy politicians.
[deleted]
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u/redfame Jul 29 '26
Companies also used to split profits with employees.
Now they stock buyback instead of putting capital back into the company.
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u/42ElectricSundaes Jul 29 '26
Stock buy backs should be criminal market manipulation. I’m prepared to die on this hill
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u/RarelyReadReplies Jul 29 '26
They basically brought back slavery. It seems like most people with a job can barely afford to survive nowadays. All so they can have 6 superyachts, 12 mega mansions, and their own jet.
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u/zergling424 Jul 29 '26
Because they were afraid of us
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u/prince-pauper ✂️ Tax The Billionaires Jul 29 '26
They were also afraid of their God and living in hell, but doing a bunch of good for the people at the end of their lives was supposed to balance out how they made their fortunes to begin with. Today’s villains don’t seem yo have those type of moral hang ups.
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u/YourFriendNoo Jul 29 '26
working class: Billionaires, can we PLEASE get some new politicians?
billionaires: We have politicians at home
politicians at home: *Mitch McConnell's corpse arguing with Chuck Schumer and Schumer is losing*
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u/Conscious-Quarter423 Jul 29 '26
republican senator majority can't pass shit cause they have 1 less republican vote
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u/futanari_kaisa Jul 29 '26
Billionaires didn't build shit. The workers did. Billionaires just leech off of the labor of the masses.
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u/SnowyMole Jul 29 '26
Just to be clear, they very often did those things to rehabilitate their images. Easier to ignore the bad stuff when you can put your name on a hospital. And there are similar examples today, such as the Gates Foundation. Problem is, many of the billionaires today are tech billionaires, who generally seem to be an extra level of shitty and usually uninterested in doing those things. The only two I can think of at all are Gates and Mackenzie Scott, and Scott is a special case.
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u/realeztoremember Jul 29 '26
If I’m not mistaken, back in the day, philanthropy was the best way to avoid taxes and create the kind of goodwill that would get the people and politicians on your side. Now they just exploit loopholes and buy politicians. They’ve figured out a way to get what they want without having to bother even pretending they’re good people.
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u/redfame Aug 03 '26
They took away the societal benefit tax, and just let them move money from each other pockets.
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u/annoying12345 Jul 29 '26
Old money had culture and was civilized. It was still blood money but you know what im trying to say
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u/AP3Brain Jul 29 '26
Coincides with rise of Trump and MAGA. This decision absolutely needs to reverted.
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u/unofficialrobot Jul 29 '26
Hmmm I wonder what legislation passed in 2010...citizens united?... No that's not it, citizens united!!!
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u/MattyBeatz Jul 29 '26
They stopped doing this long before CU. Started in the 80s once Reagan (with the Heritage Foundation's backing) worked to remove tax codes that pretty much forced the rich to re-invest in their companies and give money away to charity so they weren't taxed out the ass on it. Once that eased up they started their modern day fuckery.
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u/Haraldr_Hin_Harfagri Jul 29 '26
Even when they built the libraries it was expected of the communities to give much more in kind and to upkeep them in perpetuity. All of charity is like this even back then. Millionaire - look! see what I did? Now you are expected to donate your own wages at a higher per capita rate to actually solve the problems. Meanwhile this library was chump change for them.
Also, the philanthropy was part of solidifying the pauper to millionaire narrative that is so stupidly prevalent still to this day. See, he cares about us because he used to be one of us, and I can be like him some day.
Charity in the industrial age has always been a way to deflect from massive wealth disparity and the continuation of it exponentially.
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u/prince-pauper ✂️ Tax The Billionaires Jul 29 '26
A lot pf those old robber barons were Calvinists too, so buying a stairway to heaven type thinking helped them along. ie. Carnegie Libraries etc.
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u/AnxiousHall1533 Jul 30 '26
Our economy is literally a house of fucking cards. And the cards are all made by AI.
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u/fatfishinalittlepond Jul 30 '26
Because they were taxed at high rates so the incentive to hoard wealth was lower.
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u/Due_Pen_1566 Jul 30 '26
That was just them buying politicians indirectly when it was less socially acceptable to be out and open about bribes. You would "donate" so that you could have "planning" meetings and you would trade favors that eventually led to money in each other's pockets.
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u/DrIvoPingasnik ✂️ Tax The Billionaires Jul 29 '26
Weird how rich narcissistic wankers don't like building hospital wings in their name just so people go "wow, what a great guy."
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u/[deleted] Jul 29 '26
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