Some of them are even unfortunate enough to have to drive a Porsche instead of a Ferrari 😞

potentially forcing him to sell voting shares to pay it

...as though it's some huge fucking life-changing burden on him

He has bankers he can borrow from and could quite possible purchase more voting shares to maintain his majority. Fuck Zuck.

...on unrealized gains...

I'll be willing to accept that they are unrealized gains once they can no longer used as collateral to secure loans or used to calculate wealth. Until then they have value and should be taxed either when given (which is different than bought) or as an annual wealth tax.

If you use facebook, instagram, google or any of their services, a browser that is built off of chromium, a search engine that is just a google clone, use tiktok, buy nestle products, shop at target, jcpenny, walmart, fredmeyer; you're supporting the big bad billionaires. Stop it, no excuses.

Use the fediverse for everything, use startpage or duckduckgo, use firefox or a fork, make your own clothes and fire your own kitchen ware from clay, bike everywhere, and grow your own food and go vegetarian/vegan.

No, you don't want to do all that? Well you're a bad person I guess. I understand the sentiment, but you gotta market the change better or you just fall into the chorus of "you're bad unless you do what I'm doing".

Seems like that wasn't argued, just a maneuver to preserve the control facet of the shares even while surrendering some of the financial value could be seen as acceptable...

Wealth tax is a property tax, and just like I am forced to pay tax based on a presumed amount I could sell my house for, it can absolutely make sense to do the same for stocks. But I can totally accept that whatever that is, it shouldn't mean someone must cede control of a company based merely on a tax burden.

Of course, that said, these 'too big' companies arguably have too much public interest broadly to be focused in so few people, but that's a separate discussion than the taxation part.

401k isn't necessarily dependant on the stock market, but the stock market being the 'right' investment has been a self-fulfilling property, any 'default' election goes mostly stock, because stock goes up. stock goes up in part because a portion of everyone's paycheck defaults to being spent on stocks.

But what you can do with a 401k can be limited. I was looking at my options for something that would be a bit more bubble resistant, back testing them against the crash of the attack on Iran, and every single one of the options my plan allows had market exposure, even if more of them were not directly stock.

That's Epstein style accounting right?

Of course, that said, these 'too big' companies arguably have too much public interest broadly to be focused in so few people, but that's a separate discussion than the taxation part.

I agree, thats a completely separate issue and has nothing to do with a tax or this citizen ballot measure.

If they hadn't done this he would have been at risk. Hes no longer because of this.

The ballot measure isn't should large companies be allowed a majority shareholder. Thats a very different issue than wanting them to pay taxes.

It may not be possible to do ALL those things, but even cutting back wherever possible can make a difference. If these companies had a 10% annual dip, it would be devastating to them. It would throw them into chaos, C-Suiters would lose jobs, major changes would happen.

We might not be able to end them, but we can definitely hurt them, badly.

He’d have to sell shares which would be realized gains at that point.

Oh I agree with you, and I also agree with Pratai. I personally am actively trying to push myself toward pretty much everything I listed specifically to show the people around me that it can be done and without too much difficulty.

I have also watched, and experienced first hand that telling people they're bad even by inference for not doing these things puts people into defensive mode and they just stop listening. They feel like they have to defend themselves, so that's what they do instead. In fact, it makes it more difficult to convince them later because their first impression of the idea is associated with an attack on their identity.

In sales, you do not ever tell the customer they're stupid, that they're morally wrong, that they are impoverished idiots and that's why they should buy your product even if that is all true and the product would literally change all that. You tell them about the problems that they have, and you build it up, and then you give them one singular line that suggests that your product could fix those problems but not everyone can have this product(because it requires work on their part, or it only works within a specific ecosystem).

Instead of "If you have a Facebook account, you support this piece of shit", maybe "Wow, looks like Facebook and its management are doing some immoral stuff, and wouldn't you know it they've been doing stuff like this for a while. I know that you are an upright moral person, so here are some alternatives to consider. Me and everyone else who are seeing this go down are using this specific alternative. The catch is that it is decentralized its up to us to make it the way we want it, are you free Saturday? Neat, I'll swing by in the afternoon and help you get set up"

What exactly do you mean with being „at risk“?
That he could not have paid that?

Even so, I think it is okay. Now he is able to pay the money.

If they hadn't done the stock split he'd be at risk of losing his company if he had to pay the tax bill. He'd probably be okay this one time, but if it happened a 2nd time he'd maybe lose it.

Now he cant lose his company to pay the tax bill.

Edit: its possible the 1st one could have made him lose the company though as a 5% tax bill floods the markets with shares and the price cant support it and drops, so he has to sell more shares to pay the bill from the original price he was billed at. But I think he might have been okay with a 1 time hit. We can watch what happens to the stock price when he sells his class C shares and see what would have happened after the fact though.

Edit: people also know he would have to sell before this stock split maneuver happened and could try to take advantage of it to purposefully increase the price before his bill, then depress the price after he got his bill. It could have turned into some hostile action to remove him. That kind of stock manipulation happens all the time.

I'm sorry but this is just "too big to fail" horseshit that meta spews to stop you from divesting.

Money going from Meta shareholders to tax payers is a good thing. Full stop. End of story.

That drives down metas stock price and makes them less valuable. Those index funds and institutional investors will just reinvest somewhere else.

They haven't defrauded you of shit.

First of all, diluting your stocks is not fraud. At end of story there.

Second of all, those institutional investors will just put that money into a different more valuable company, driving down metas stock price.

This is literally horseshit logic that would lead you to think that any company, once they hit a certain size cannot be let to fail or suffer, just because they're now part of an index fund. Thats absolute horseshit.

First of all, diluting your stocks is not fraud

The entire “AI” industry is based on fraud and product misrepresentation, and when the bubble pops we’ll see what the courts say when people start suing.

No it's not. I'm sorry, but everyone on Reddi / Lemmy who is all like 'ai is horseshit and doesn't do anything', are fucking, sotrich-like, head in the sand, idiots.

You can be anti-AI for the economic reason, or you can be anit-AI because you think it doesn't work, and the latter camp are blind morons.

I’m anti-LLMs and generative AI both because it’s useless garbage and because of the disgusting social and environmental cost. Anyone who thinks it works incredibly is either using for shit that barely required a sapient person to begin with (writing office emails and making flyers), or they’re using it as the most expensive autocorrect in the world (coders). Shockingly, all of which can be done without destroying the planet and with fewer errors if you just pay actual people to do it. All of which is irrelevant to the fact that it simply does not to the things these companies are claiming it does. It is not going to replace your human work force, it is not going to recursively improve itself any more than breeding faster horses made trains.

Oh, sorry, I forgot it also works incredibly for spamming and hacking insecure systems. Vital needs worth destroying the planet over.