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Comment by Despegar | Hacker News Reader

This is exactly why Elizabeth Warren's wealth tax is a great idea.

I think her aims are loftier than taking survivalist "enthusiasts" down a peg or two. Businesses like this have existed before, they just don't make much money. The owner interviewed here claims he broke even, which isn't all that surprising since the market for a $1 million + bunker in South Dakota is going to be limited.

You do realize that all this bunker construction, prepper consultation and long-term foodstuffs is keeping a lot of people gainfully employed. You basically want to put them out of business.

The thing is, those jobs do not provide serious long term benefits for humanity. Large infrastructure projects, like the ones that major governments can green light (for example, space travel, quality parks services, education etc) do. It also helps even the playing field so that poorer people are less likely to be disenfranchised. A noble goal in itself but it also probably helps reduce the likelihood of an end-of-world scenario.

Keeping hundreds of people working on insurance projects for the super-rich is not the best allocation of funds, and we have the power to change that allocation.

If you believe that the wealthy should only spend their money in a way that provides for "serious long term benefits for humanity" I ask you to enter your income into this website and then come back and tell me if you still feel that way.

http://www.globalrichlist.com/

Just did, and I do. But I'm not going to start doing it until someone forces me to, because I'm fallible.

Edit: but for what it's worth, I do spend all my free money on trying to create wealth and jobs for people who don't have it.

Thanks for the honesty. When you realize that it isn't the 1% vs the 99% but more like the .1% vs the 1% it all starts to look a little silly doesn't it? Wealthiest people ever to live on earth complaining that other people have more than they do.

It's a valid thing to complain about - same as we complain about the world's great polluters despite being way up there ourselves. The means and opportunity to say "hey, this isn't fair" is something not everyone has, and I think, since we can, we should.

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