A sitcom is easily worth a billion dollars. If you could give all 250mm adults in this country $4 worth of entertainment you’ve earned a billion. I never liked his show and I don’t find him funny but he has still probably given me $4 in entertainment just for “no soup for you” and soup nazi. Hell I just pissed away $20 on the powerball for 12 hours of dreaming and thought that was worth it so his whole show has at least given me that much value over the years, though I don’t know enough about the writing process to say if Jerry earned 20% of the credit but that seems reasonable especially if we extend this world wide instead of just focusing on the US.
I actually suspect (without evidence) that most of the privileged wealthy also do not think they deserve their situation. They just don’t know what to do about that. Would you? Yeah you could redistribute the specific individual wealth you’ve got to less fortunate people, but in what fashion? I mean you could opt for splitting what you’ve got with the general populace, but it doesn’t fix the unfair-distribution problem in general if you see what I mean. (And yeah, then you’d be, if not destitute, lower middle class AND the system of financial inequality would still persist). So you look for what you can change with your money. Or you don’t, because you get jaded about the whole thing because you know damn well YOU (and the other rich folks) didn’t conjure this mess into existence, not personally.
You wanna involve the rich, you’ve got to propose to them a way out of all this. Not just tell them they’re unfairly rich, they kind of KNOW that, or at least a substantial percent of them do.
They (the super rich) should all give away, to the less fortunate or the betterment of society and the world, at least half their wealth. That’s a good start. We can quibble with the details about who qualifies in these categories, but I’d be ecstatic if anything close to this became a mainstream opinion. I recognize I’m in the minority here.
While I wouldn’t be singling out sitcoms as being any different from rock music or rap, I agree with the overall idea- nobody should have that much money.
All current billionaires should have their wealth capped out - say, at $100 million? That’s plenty.
And all that money taken, should be given to some international organizations that help the whole world - WHO, UNICEF, UNDEP, UNEP, Médecins Sans Frontières, etc. Not billionaire’s pet charities.
Except Bill Gates, he does things the right way. In fact, include the BMGF in my list of orgs that should get other billionaire’s money.
Yeah we do and we do worry them. But I think your use of “bleeding heart liberals” says a lot. What do you believe in, “compassionate conservatism” or “a thosand points of light”? How does that come about without the the rich being wiling to donate a large percentage of their wealth? I am not talking about giving it all away. How about half? You are worth 500 million, then you are worth 250 million. My liberal heart will bleed for them.
However, AHunter3 you make a very good point. What they should do with their money if they are of a charitable mind is not easy. I am not saying there is any easy answer to this problem, but I think it has to start with eliminating ths “greed is good” mentality in this country. Once you have made a few hundred million, you have made it. You won the American Dream, congratulations. Now pay some of it back.
Dude, that’s just crazy. How are they going to be able to afford to house themselves with such meager assets? Be realistic man - do you want the wealthy and their children to be shivering out in the cold in some mere 9,000 sq. ft hovel?
I’m not sure I agree with you a hundred percent on your police work , there.
They donate to all kinds of dodgy companies, use it to launder their reputation and benefit themselves.
Warning, The Nation probably glows red with (correct) leftness.
Rob Larson talks about this stuff in his book Bit Tyrants.
My wife has actually worked with the BMGF to successfully provide food and medical care for needy South Africans in the current crisis. I’ll trust actual experience on this one. Plus I have no problem with Gates e.g. funding pharma corps if that’s the only way drugs are going to get made. “Big Pharma” is not automatically evil in my view, the way it seems to be for The Nation.
And they seem to take media giving as another automatic evil. Which is particularly short-sighted for a damn media site. Gates puts out positive propaganda - especially in this heavily politicized pandemic.
Could he do better? Yes, he undoubtedly can. But he’s firmly in the Not A Dick column in my book (and I fucking hate Micro$oft of old, so it takes a lot to counterbalance that)
Plus - seriously, <$200 million to ideologically dodgy recipients off $50 billion is small potatoes - less than many other star favourite charities take in admin fees.
Dipshit, “bleeding heart liberals” was your term. I guess you already forgot that. Well, you said “bledding” but I assumed that was a typo and that you know what the actual term is. (Do you?) You don’t know a fuck about me you ignoramus, I’m not a conservative, but I also don’t believe all people with wealth should be obligated to give all that wealth away to others. I definitely think it would be wonderful for everyone with great wealth to donate the majority of it, and I’d like to think that I’d do that myself if I were in that position. But to rant about a specific comedian who just happens to not be generous enough for you? You are a special kind of moron.
Anyway, way to trip up on this. You have a really short memory. Try to get your rants straight and try not to forget your own fucking words from a few hours before the next time you make an attempt to go off on someone about their choice of wording. 
FYI, Seinfeld has done more than co-create one of the most successful sit-coms in history. His Cars and Coffee series is a success, and he’s one of a handful of comedians that can reliably fill large venues.
reliably fill large venues.
And reliably find a high school girl in the park to fuck.
You would be wrong about that.
Enforced altruism? There’s an idea. American voters would lovingly celebrate in the Capitol building over the prospect.
And then the next year, give away half again? Until their wealth drops to what level?
I’m curious what you think would be a reasonable amount of personal wealth.
I think $50-100 million is a reasonable cap. At that level, folks should still give plenty away IMO, but I’d be okay with them roughly maintaining this level of wealth. That’s more than enough for an extremely luxurious lifestyle and plenty left over for the kids’ future.
And this should be a moral imperative, not a legal one (at least not at this point). In general, I think it’s a positive good for society if the extremely wealthy fear the guillotine, and this would be a way to minimize this fear.
This is your response to the OP
This pitting is one of the stupidest I’ve seen in a long time. A pitiful pitting.
“Why isn’t he giving most of his money to charity?”
What a whining asshole. This is what gets you up in arms? You’re pathetic
Nothing but a personal attack. Did you even read the last paragraph? And I never said anyone should be obligated to give away all their wealth. Just that I wished the very rich woud do more. I will say my wording was a little strong in the OP
I know what I wrote. My memory is not what it used to be, but it was in what you quoted, with my name in the quote. When I responded later I thought it was a new post from someone else, quoting me. My mistake, I didn’t remember your name. But fuck you too.
This was the only portion of your statement I choose to engage and I disagree with it. I would say that Jerry Seinfield, perceived or otherwise, is an asshole (double checks this is the Pit. Yep, it’s the Pit.). I’d go so far as to say that he has a stick shoved so far up his ass that I’m surprised a pole with a gold ball on the top doesn’t sprout out of his nose waving a flag that fans his face on hot days.
His money? None of it was coming this way before, none of it will be coming this way afterward. Maybe he’ll be buried with it. Maybe he’ll have a machine installed on each side of his coffin to “shake it up” so thousand dollar bills can fall down on his rotting corpse twice a day like a snow-globe.
I couldn’t give a rat’s ass ( or even his ass ).
Dreyfus pulled his show along like Secretariat dragging a garbage truck filled with dead weight.
A cursory search reveals he does do a lot of work via a foundation to help people. Second it’s his fucking money and can do what he wants with it. If you want a Marxist society , pack up your shit and go move to Venezuela and in a month or so you can eat “Sport” your five year old Boston Terrier for Sunday dinner because your starving
I agree more with Fuck Jerry Seinfeld because he isn’t that funny. Being a fan of comedians I never understood the admiration all other comedians have for him. His shit is weak and without Larry David there would have been no “Seinfeld” Larry David is Seinfeld.
He’s also a dick my friend runs a catering service she serviced his rider when he performed in our city, she didn’t have many nice things to say about her one interaction with him.
I was never a big fan of the site, so i never researched the man. But he played an asshole in his show, and I’d just assumed that he was also an asshole in real life. I’m surprised that this thread is about him being too rich, and but about something else.
That’s not how money works. The only way money sits there doing nothing is if you stuff it under your mattress or something. If money is sitting in an account, it’s being used to give people loans for home or businesses. But odds are good Seinfeld doesn’t just have a billion in cash, he’s probably got a significant chunk of it tied up in investments of some kind.