No ethical billionaires. Nobody comes by that much money honestly.
While I don’t think it’s true, I could accept the idea that it were possible to make that much money ethically. However, having that much and not doing good with it? To me that’s the bigger evil. Billionaires should be extincting themselves.
Entertainers could be an exception to the evil billionaire rule, but even Swift was doing things like renting out her jet, and her shows have a huge carbon footprint as well.
If she were paying for the pollution, the profit margins wouldn’t be so high.
Also we just need to tax most of the income over $1 million a year. Like we did before the 80s greed is good bullshit started.
Here’s a quick and simple example of how much $1 million ($1,000,000,000,) is compared to $1 billion ($1,000,000,000,000.)
1 million seconds equals 11.57 days. 1 billion seconds equals 31.71 years. Days v.s. YEARS!
Nobody earns a billion dollars. Imagine it’s October 12, 1492. One of your ancestors is so excited about Columbus landing in America, that he starts putting aside the equivalent of 5000 dollars every single day. And through good fortune, every heir continues to do the same. 5000 dollars added to a pile every single day for over 530 years. 5000 dollars is more than most people make in a month and it accrues every. single. day. There is no interest on the money, but at the same time there are no taxes and nobody spends it on frivolous stuff like food or shelter or education or healthcare. And now, after more than 531 years you inherit it all and realize you’re not a billionaire. I know it’s an unrealistic thought experiment, but to me it shows that no billionaire ever earned their money.
You’re really close to $1B. I’m not actually sure what is thought provoking about this.
I also don’t know why it doesn’t show that a billionaire hasn’t earned their money. If Taylor Swift gets 10 million people to pay her $150 to go to her concerts in her life time, and her expenses are $50 per show, is she not a billionaire that earned $1B?
10 million tickets is only 400 shows if she’s filling 25k seat arenas.
None of this is actual math, but it’s not insane to me that someone could earn a billion dollars.
What is insane is that someone would sit on a billion dollars like a dragon on their pile of gold.
I think ever having that money, unless it’s just shit into your lap for some reason, precludes you from being the kind of person who can do that good. It takes a level of cutthroat and a degree of psychopathy to accumulate that much wealth in a single lifetime. So in essence, having and making that much are both fucked.
Bill Gates is probably the better billionaire of the bunch, but I can’t tell if he’s against the anti-billionaire tax policies because it would take away his privilege or if he believes he does more good with the money providing medicine in Africa than the government would do with it. Depending on his answer he’s just as bad as the rest of them.
He’s evil with billionaire PR and he actually wants to be thought well of. Don’t be fooled.
Like Buffet, Bill Gates has been publicly supportive of increased taxes for the rich. One could argue that he should disperse his wealth without being forced to, but one could also argue that if every good rich person gave away their money, without the bad rich people being forced to, we would only have bad rich people controlling our politicians. One could also argue that a good rich person can invest in good things that the public run government would not be able to or willing to. For instance vaccinating the entire world to make tuberculosis extinct would never be supported by the US government as a majority of americans don’t care about the poor in other countries and don’t want to pay for it. I find the whole “all rich people are evil” arguement to not hold up to pragmatic logic.
Any charity a rich person does is FAR better then giving it to the government to do something with.
You could argue most of the money some top athletes make is from advertising deals and you might see that as amoral. Being really good at running is impressive, but doesn’t inherently contribute hundreds of millions of dollars worth of value to society.
Brand deals with companies that sell stuff that’s probably made by slave Labor. Not so ethical.
A world tour like that requires a shit ton of labor, sure it’s less straight forward to decide how much surplus value of that labor goes to her, but I would argue it’s certainly not negligible
If she had to do everything by herself, the world tour would consist of a few one-woman-gigs at local bars.
Just the handful of concerts I’ve been nominally involved in settin up… there’s hundreds of security staff. 20-50 semi trucks for the stage, a hundred or so roadies. Dozens of forklift drivers. Traffic direction.
And that’s ignoring increases staffing/labor by cities and neighboring properties (increased cops, paramedics, increased security adjacent to the event…)
Like.
It’s far from negligible
There is an option other than lowering ticket prices. And that is to pay the workers more.
Their money comes from the same place it does with the ones you already label as shit. They’re just the pretty, personable face that you see. You cannot get to that level of wealth in a single lifetime without a whole slew of fucked up shit. Doesn’t matter if it’s directly or only complicit, earning that much in a lifetime is problematic at the absolute best.
For those unaware
From 2022:
Taylor Swift’s plane was identified by the report as the “biggest celebrity CO2e polluter this year so far,” racking up 170 flights since January with emissions totaling more than 8,293 metric tons.
A report published last year by Transport & Environment, a major European clean transport campaign group, found that a single private jet can emit 2 metric tons of CO2 in just an hour. To put that in context, the average person in the E.U. produces about 8.2 tons of emissions over the course of an entire year, according to the report.
https://www.transportenvironment.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/2021_05_private_jets_FINAL.pdf
So the average person was responsible for 8.2 and Swift did 8.293 in flights?
Swift’s flights were responsible for a thousand times more C02e than an average EU citizen. One has a comma, the other has a dot
How much more economic activity than the average citizen?
Anyway I suppose flying commercial and accordingly taking on a less aggressive tour schedule would help her reduce her footprint. I only know a few her hits (mostly that are more club friendly) personally but acknowledge she’s going to be responsible for more of everything in the aggregate. Way more environmental damage. Way more endorphins.
So back to “how can she reduce her footprint” while still doing her Swiftie thing? Sure there are plenty of ways.
No, a single person is responsible for 8.2 tons and Swift’s JET ALONE did 8.293. That’s not counting all of the OTHER carbon footprint that swift undoubtedly has.
Edit:uah, even worse. It’s 8 THOUSAND tons for her jet, and 8 tons for the regular person.
Edit: A lot of people seem to have no idea what carbon offsets are. Here’s a reasonably quick rundown:
Basically though, they are tge best market solution we have thus far yo the climate crisis. We need government to do better but in that absence, this is the closest we hve to a free market solution. While appealing, solutions like “bitching online that people should just go back to pre industrial era lives” or “hoping everyone will just vote correctly next time” are definitely fun solutions, carbon offsets have the effect of actually doing stuff in the meantime.
If we’re crucifying people for things they are expected to have, are you pure evil because the phone youbhad undoubtedly used cobalt mined by children who occasionally lose their arns mining it?
A cursory google search showed that she paid double her carbon offsets for the current tour. While imperfect, carbon offsets, and people voluntarily paying into them is how we move through and past our current carbon intensive lifestyle.
carbon offsets
they are tge best market solution we have thus far yo the climate crisis
Bullshit. Carbon offsets is mostly a scam where polluters “offset” real emissions with potential if not purely theoretical mitigation. The reforestation that companies claim offset their emissions would fill more land than there is on earth in total.
Meanwhile, the fossil fuel industry, to name the worst problem humanity has, is emitting MORE than ever while using the Carbon Offsets scam to greenwash their killing millions of people a year while being the main cause of climate change.
The best solution is, has always been and always will be to emit less pollutants.
Literally all your complaints call for better regulation rather than abandonment of the carbon offset program… Such regulation being enabled by, you guessed it, high profile folks buying in!
Yes, no emissions would be better but until we’re willing to chastise everyone for not eating vegan, it seems pretty silly to get annoyed for someone who contributes less to climate change than say, a mcdonalds.
A weird take, but ok… Are you a “swiftie”? Going to bat for a rich popstar is a little weird.
Going to bat for a rich popstar is a little weird.
Reality should be reality, regardless of the subject.
Edit: At least 9 people disagree but so far, the closest to a substantive reply is essentially “she’s rich, why do you care?”
Well if you really start looking into it, carbon offsets are mostly a scam.
For instance just declaring: “I will cut down this forest” without ever having the intention to do so, and then not doing it counts as a carbon offset. This is what abgreat part of companies are doing. Just saving forests that nobody wanted to cut down in the first place from being cut down. This they then sell to the consumer as a carbon offset.
John Oliver had a great segment on this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p8zAbFKpW0
Ahhhh, the John Oliver effect. I knew there was a reason people were furious without quite being able to articulate well!
If you pay attention, you’ll note that Oliver’s problem with carbon offsets is that the system is too easy to game, which is fair!
But to say that means the entire notion of carbon offsets is nonsense is a little silly. It’s sort of like saying “too many people cheat on their taxes, we shouldn’t have taxes!” Instead of, y’know, better regulation and enforcement.
In this case, you have one of the most PR savvy people on Earth, I’d be surprised if her team didn’t find a legit carbon offset (which is exactly how we say, compensate farmers for not burning the amazon for the lucrative farmland etc.)
I didn’t know you could pay money to reverse the damage you have personally caused to the climate crisis
You can’t. But in the real world, we aren’t going to stop using planes, cars and heaters in the next few months.
The best thing that aids a transition are carbon offsets that help subsidize the very technology upon which a Green revolution depends.
I think people tend to dismiss carbon offsets on the basis that they are a free market solution to a problem that the free market has (mostly) caused. You could maybe blame government for lacking regulation on the free market in like the 19th and early 20th century, but me and I think most people would probably think that’s full of shit and kind of kicking the can down the road, foisting the responsibility on the government and not the corporate world for basically no reason, other than that we would expect the corporate world to be a bunch of little scamps or something. I think it would be better off blaming the government for basically just being in a revolving door sort of affair with corporations, but then, I think the answer to that wouldn’t be like, dismiss the government in exchange for the free market, but instead more along the lines of, you know, as you’ve said in response to carbon offsets, more regulations against such things.
And before you come at me for wanting top down government solutions because they’re “unrealistic”, and also thinking that bottom up political activism is “unrealistic”, I dunno, like. If your solution is just kind of to believe in solely the free market, I really wonder what leftism you’re doing there, especially if you’re bringing up cobalt mines with children losing their arms. That’s some iphone venezuela latte level shit, there, that whole deal just seems like nihilism. Like we all get that you can’t ethically participate in capitalism, but that’s not really a good argument to double down on capitalism and be like “well, if I have to…”, because it’s seen as “more realistic”. By even that logic, it would be better off if most of us just used our excess finance to stop contributing to the climate crisis directly in our own lives, but then I dunno whether or not I can predict your response to that, based on your disdain for cobalt mining. If you don’t like electric cars on that same basis, and you don’t think top down or bottom up government intervention would be likely to happen, then there’s not gonna be many solutions, for you, for getting rid of your own carbon emissions even from a car, outside of maybe a really shitty ebike with lead batteries that probably won’t be able to take you 30 miles to your job because we live in a suburban hellscape shithole america, or whatever.
I dunno, I gotta go walk my dog. I think the most obvious solution here is just for her to not like. Fly around in a private jet everywhere. Even trucks, which would probably be the other solution, would make more sense, and for the rare inter-continental flight she could probably just take first class with like, a mask and some sunglasses on, and I dunno if anyone would give two shits about that. There’s not really any reason she needs to have a private jet in the first place, so this whole argument is STUPID and DUMB.
Lots to digest here!
I’m not quite sure what point you’re trying to make in the first paragraph though. Intuitively, I blame corporations but don’t fault them. They are behaving in line with their incentives. It is up to government to create incentives that ensure good behaviour. So to me, the real blame does lie with goverments’ inability to create and enforce a carbon tax (which is generally the agreed upon best way to transition to a carbon neutral economy.)
I think bottom’s up political activism is essential. But also kind of doomed. If those under 35 voted at rates comparable to those over 65 (and yes, that includes in primaries), we’d be approaching the end of Bernie’s second term and democrats would be arguing about who was best suited to carry on his legacy.
Not sure what the iphone venezuala comment is? I bring up the cobalt mines simply to say that it is easy for us to forgive our own sins but castigate those wealthier than us. (Also an example of us just being conditioned to shrug and say “that’s inevitable.” No it fucking isn’t! If we as consumers actually cared about real things, like those children, instead of whatever comedian we’re policing on twitter or whatever, we would have ethical mines just as we have ethical clothes, ethical foods etc. But, people’s morality tends to go right up until those morals would become slightly inconvenient.) To the rural citizens in impoverished nations who are already suffering climate change, our desire for plane fueled vacations seems just as unnecessary as Swift’s use of a jet to get to her concerts. In the meantime, paying double the carbon cost to developing the technologies or supporting the agriculture necessary to get us to net zero, well, while there’s room for manipulation and badness, it’s not the worst thing.
I agree that this whole thing is stupid and dumb. There isn’t any reason any of us need planes, to eat meat etc. The things that actually solve this crisis are bottoms up politicial activism rather than whining about a celebrity who is doing their best to offset their carbon emissions and supporting a nascent program that is exactly the type of program that gets us to net zero.
Like we said, stupid and dumb.
Ahh yes, the woman who wanted to… (checks notes) hmm copyright a fucking date because she used it for an album…
Ffs there is no such thing as an ethical money hungry person.
She did actually get those trademarks:
- https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=86369161&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch
- https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=86363039&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch
- https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=86838684&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch
Trademarks for years (and others shit) like that are pretty common. Like this one for 2023: https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=77026303&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch
Here is one for “LOL”: https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=77669187&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch
She doesn’t own the year, I think she is just the only one allowed to use it for merchandise, albums, and a bunch of other stuff. Basically no one in the USA is allowed to make a T-shirt with 1989 on it. Maybe it would be fine if the t-shirt has no other connection to Swift. Dunno.
She has a fuckton of trademarks. Just search for "TAS RIGHTS MANAGEMENT, LLC " on https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/search/search-information
I mean, there’s probably a ton of crap on her. I have no idea, I haven’t read up on her, but I would assume that every billionaire has a lot of smoking guns with regard to pollution, bad work conditions and unethical handling of capital. But if the worst you have on her is that she attempted to copyright ‘1989’, it doesn’t really seem too bad.
Her private jet has the most CO2 emissions out of any celebrity. She defended that by saying she rents it out, so it wasn’t all her; as if that changes how much the private jet she owns has emitted. As far as the rest of her environmental impact, it is likely no worse than other performing celebrities so not great but in larger amounts than other celebs.
She does seem to do well by her support staff. She gave out $55m in bonuses to everyone who worked on her last tour.
She has donated a lot, but I couldn’t find out if she has donated over the deduction cap or if she claimed the donations. As far as I can tell the majority has been given to food insecurity charities and disaster relief. So even if it is a tax scheme, she seems to be giving in the right direction.
I am not a fan of her music, but she doesn’t seem like a terrible person except that she has unimaginable wealth, a massive platform, a highly influential brand, and isn’t doing as much as she could to help others.
This is, unironically, the best meme about leftists ever made.
In my experience, leftists are like Star Wars fans, in that no one hates leftists like other leftists.
The right, when issues arise, circle the wagons. The left, when issues arise, form a circular firing squad.
The let’s fractured nature is both its greatest strength, allowing for innovation and new thinking, and its greatest weakness. We often fail to come together for good, when we all want perfect. We often end up with neither.
Youre not lumping liberals in with leftists are you? Because liberals arent leftists. Liberals are status quo aka conservative.
Over here, the Lib Dems, while traditionally center/center-right, are actually more left leaning than our left wing party (labour) in many ways.
Oh, and you are doing a wonderful example of it.
The left covers all the way from slightly left of center, to extreme left. It gets blurry at the extreme, however. It seems to lurch into authoritarianism, which is a lot more in line with the right wing.
I always wonder why the workers of the world don’t rise up together. We could easily take over without any violence.
Then I remember we all hate each other and refuse to work together and it makes me sad.
The people in the lowest paying shittiest jobs are always at one anothers throats. When I worked at places where I got good money and benefits everyone was so pleasant to each other. When I worked at places (currently) where everyone is underpaid and mistreated, they all spend their time talking about people behind their backs and throwing everyone else under the bus. The lower you are economically the more “dog eat dog” everything becomes.
The petite bourgeoisie has become invested through 401k’s and healthcare benefits in the system.
You’re dead right, this comment section is one of the most tragic things I’ve seen in a while actually.
She’s a talented performer, presumably a very hard worker, and they’re seething because she… Has money? From proving entertainment, which is a completely optional thing to buy, and by no means an essential service.
There are ethical billionaires, but nobody would have heard of them because they do not advertise and show off how much of a good person they are for donating. A good person do not look for validation. Charles Feeney comes to mind who donated 90% of his wealth and died with net worth of $1 million. He also lived in a rented apartment despite having become a billionaire for managing Duty Free.
Edit: okay some have been pedantic on here about Charles Feeney and his wealth, and some of my figures have been wrong, but the overall point still stands. He was worth $8 billion, donated over 99% of his wealth and spent the rest of his remaining days with $2 million.
Incorrect. The only way to acquire a billion dollars in net worth is to exploit labor.
Doesnt matter if they donated to charity. Its a tax shelter for them. Im sure Feeneys employees would have preferred to be paid higher wages.
What if someone suddenly inherited 1bn from an estranged relative, or if they won the lottery? I’d say that’s an ethical way of gaining that much wealth
I think what defines an ethical billionare from one that isn’t, is how much they share with everyone else and how much they consume for themselves. Spending that much money properly would take time. They’d have to vet charities, hire people to help them spend it on the best things, research where to invest in (i’m talking about things like green energy) etc.
Just food for thought. I tend to like looking for exceptions to rules (idk why)
There is no ethical billionaire because to amass a billion dollar means other people that produced that much value did not get paid properly. Simple as that. If you inherit a billion dollars, it was still made on the back of workers.
That’s reeeeeeally far from a billionaire. If he donated 90% and died with a million, he died with 10% so he had 10mil.
You’re right but that’s just being pedantic and my point still stands that he donated vast majority of his wealth. As of 2016, he was worth $2 million. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/05/nyregion/james-bond-of-philanthropy-gives-away-the-last-of-his-fortune.html,
Bill Gates is much the same, he’s given away over half his net worth to charity at this point.
He’s not the worse billionaire, but still done enough to get two episodes on behind the bastards: https://youtu.be/lFS9DFXtj1M
