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No doubt (lemmy.world)
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[-] sonofearth@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago

For that you need to first receive the income and book the capital gains. If you ever filed your taxes you would know. A 3% wealth tax on non cash assets would be more effective and productive. There are provisions where if you take out a home loan, you can deduct its interest from your salary or income to reduce your tax liability. Billionaires (or even the middle class) do that often. This builds assets as well as allows for a lower tax liability.

[-] Brutticus@midwest.social 4 points 2 hours ago

Im gonna say that this is why Batman Forever is my favorite Batman movie. There is this scene where the badguys rip a bank vault out of the wall, and by the end of the scene batman uses an explosive to have fly back into place. My point is, Batman needs to take place in a pulpy hyper reality, or he goes from a Doc Savage in a cool costume to a mentally insane Billionaire karate chopping poor people because as punishment.

Also, in that movie, they took pains to portray him as a "Good" ceo.

I just think this is an issue of tone and presentation.

[-] Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 13 points 4 hours ago

Gotham is extremely corrupt, from the police departments being riddled with officers on any of the several mob payrolls. Same for the politicians. Feeding more tax dollars into that won't mean that money is going to the poor people who would benefit from it

[-] zalgotext@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 hour ago

Gotham being corrupt should make it even easier for a billionaire like Wayne to control things, because as we see in real life, it doesn't take all that much money to influence politicians. There's nothing stopping Wayne from bribing the shit out of everyone to do non-evil things, then once Gotham is in a more stable place, bankroll campaigns for politicians that aren't corrupt. He could literally drain the swamp by backfilling it with money, but instead he decides to run around at night in his little gimp suit punching poor people

[-] dustyData@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Part of the point of so many of Batman's villains is that, to quote joker, it's not about the money but about sending a message. Or holding power in many cases. Many of the most corrupt villains are not only bankrolling bribes, they are also blackmailing tons of people and many more live under threat to loved ones. Wayne just waltzing in and saying "I'll pay you triple to be good" does nothing. Because if they don't do the villain's biding they will get murdered and their family will be slaughtered. Hence the need for a vigilante to disrupt the corrupt system with direct action. That's the whole arc of Harvey Dent, for example. The system took him down in the worst possible way to shape him into another morally bankrupt psycho.

[-] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 4 points 3 hours ago

Isn’t that a massive indictment of Batman’s entire modus operandi though? That there can be a terrifying lunatic who will beat you up with his little finger if you even think of doing a crime, and yet crime and corruption is worse than in every other city?

[-] Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 hours ago

I do think there's some merit to paying those kids of people enough via the state that they're less likely to need or want to be corrupt in order to make ends meet.

Of course there are people who would still use that to live their life in luxury at the expense of others but I believe that'd generally be a minority

[-] RedFrank24@lemmy.world 13 points 5 hours ago

Gotham is so corrupt that it would make Russia blush. If you taxed Bruce Wayne at 99%, nothing would change except the cops would all suspiciously have new supercars.

[-] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 6 points 4 hours ago

See also Taylor Swift.

Pay some goddamn taxes.

[-] Triasha@lemmy.world 6 points 5 hours ago

3% wealth tax would be better still

[-] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Note that the tax exempt amount of $10 million is chosen such that 99% of people have less than that net wealth. It's supposed to guarantee a strong democratic support.

I.e. the 99-percent-quantile of net wealth is about $10 million in the US. (or at least it was in 2019 when i looked at the statistics)

[-] uriel238 15 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

What bugs me is this is a controversial opinion about Batman. That there's still objection to the notion that Batman is fulfilling his own violent jollies in the color of seeking justice, rather than using his massive fortunes to serve good.

I think my most controversial Batman opinion is that his code vs. killing is bunk. Even if he just punches goons, he does so enough that goons would die often enough to give Batman a substantial body count. I'm sure his press crew and legal team are occupied continuously with the task of cleaning up his messes.

In fact, there's not enough dramatic crime (like bank heists, contrast domestic violence or check-cashing fraud, which not even regular police care much about) to support a superhero career¹

Curiously, Batman could make a career going after elite deviance / white collar crime, going after the Sacklers for pushing opioids and starting the current opioid crisis, going after companies that lobby governments to deregulate so they can pollute or push false products (e.g. cars as opposed to public transit); Or the DeVos family who use MLMs and PMCs to make their millions; Or the private equity companies like Bain Capital and Blackrock who get rich by creating massive bankruptcy sinkholes leveraging the brand reputations of aging companies and foreclosing commodities for their own personal gain. If Wayne wanted to go after the very sorts of things he, his company and his parents did / do to amass their fortunes, he could prevent a lot of cost, destruction and loss of life by orders of magnitude more than all the petty crime put together.

Funny DC doesn't want to do that, though. Maybe Detective Comics is just state and law enforcement propaganda and they like it that way.

  1. ( ¹ ) Batman is not just a mountain of a man and master martial artist, but also has the academic capacity of several doctorates, assuming he -- and not a secret task force of backup investigators -- does all his detective-work and implements all his backup plans. Personally, I like the idea of Batman as a sophisticated justice and detective agency.
[-] starman2112@sh.itjust.works 16 points 8 hours ago

It's a controversial opinion because it's ill-informed. Bruce Wayne does give the majority of his money to charity. Even Superman, the goodest person on earth, looks up to him. But no amount of funding food banks or building low-income housing is going to uncurse the cursed land that Gotham is built on

[-] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 7 points 7 hours ago

Yeah I recall half the issue being that Gotham is so corrupt, any money is going to be wasted, which is why the Wayne family has to have its own charities to accomplish anythign at all.

[-] veni_vedi_veni@lemmy.world 4 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Atleast in reality, a lot of the time corruption happens is because people don't get paid enough to have the luxury of principles/integrity.

So it's a case of self fulfilling prophecy

[-] Maeve@kbin.earth 5 points 6 hours ago

Clarence totes needed that lux RV

[-] veni_vedi_veni@lemmy.world 4 points 6 hours ago

Fair point, but that's also why every branch of government also needs to be beholden to another which did not sign them in the first place.

The fact that they are assigned for life is a glaring potential for abuse.

[-] Maeve@kbin.earth 1 points 5 hours ago

Also every person in every governmental position from county to federal needs a no confidence/recall method.

[-] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago

I agree with you in the realm of reality. But I think thats why they tried to bring the idea that "some people just want to watch the world burn" to the forefront with Joker. If he wanted to redistribute the wealth to have a better society he wouldn't burn it all, or he'd use it to counter anti social program rhetoric or something. Try to make some kind of change, but he doesn't want change, he wants the wealth gap. The bigger the gap, the more desperate the people who he can manipulate into causing more crime and chaos.

[-] uriel238 3 points 5 hours ago

Some people just want to watch the world burn is good cause not to deal with such people. The mafia / crime syndicate in an effort to get to Batman hired Joker as a Guy of Gisborne to Batman's Robin Hood, only they got more than they bargained for.

Considering our billionaires hired Trump to keep their taxes low and are now dealing with a tanking economy, this seems to be the kind of play that tracks IRL. Especially since now Trump is lame duck and Miller, Vought and Thiel/Vance (Mandate, Marbro Man and Lifepod might be their villain names) are now vying for power while Trump is still alive.

Heck, this would make a great comic book.

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[-] uriel238 3 points 7 hours ago

ill informed

And this is where I ask if I even give you the time of day. I don't think you understand the failures of modern charity in contrast to, say, the general fund of an actually-democratic society.

In fact, Oakland, California IRL is doing a lot of the things that Gotham should be doing including food banks and low-income housing projects, but also extending the list of 911 responders to provide alternatives to a police force that is eager to escalate to violence and can't handle mental health crises, kids programs, school breakfast and lunch programs. You know, the kinds of things that an actual society might do.

Unless you're arguing there's a literal magical curse on the city of Gotham, in which case no amount of face-punching thugs is going to help either, and DC's writing is proving as consistent as ever.

I posted below in more depth regarding the serious failure of the Batman paradigm, and would argue the fantasy is as much utopianism as Starship Troopers.

[-] starman2112@sh.itjust.works 6 points 7 hours ago

Unless you're arguing there's a literal magical curse on the city of Gotham, in which case no amount of face-punching thugs is going to help either, and DC's writing is proving as consistent as ever.

There literally is lmfao

[-] Revan343@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 hours ago

Did this guy forget that we're talking about comics?

[-] qarbone@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago

It's so on the nose, it almost feels like bait.

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[-] mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca 32 points 10 hours ago

isn't a big part of the whole setup that this would not help much? like Gotham is just too corrupt, whenever programs are set up to invest in the public, they're mostly just stolen from.

Wayne is a philanthropist who gives a ton of money back through his own programs, right? presumably better overseen than the government ones.

I don't know how much money of Wayne's is actually used for philanthropy, but he can't just give the city all his wealth because it's too corrupt for it to be used well, right?

[-] ameancow@lemmy.world 19 points 9 hours ago

whenever programs are set up to invest in the public, they’re mostly just stolen from.

I'm reminded of the time Walgreens reported they were raising prices and closing stores because of rampant crime, but later admitted they made it the fuck up.

[-] squaresinger@lemmy.world 3 points 7 hours ago

Where does Wayne's money come from?

How many hours does Wayne's day have that he can do millions or billions of dollars worth of actual work while still playing dress-up at night?

Or does his money come from short-changing and underpaying his employees, while hiking the prices for his customers? Or does it come from using speculation and investment to make sure he gets rich off other people being underpaid and overcharged?

How can he be a philanthropist when all his money comes from fleecing other people?

[-] uriel238 4 points 7 hours ago

Wayne Enterprises is essentially Lockheed-Martin, so yes, short changing his customers (that is, the US Government) figures largely into his business model. So does promoting military adventurism and forever wars.

And that also means assuring that kids in the slums don't have access to opportunities other than the military.

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[-] Velypso@sh.itjust.works 62 points 12 hours ago

This thread is full of people who have never read Batman comics.

Gothman is literally cursed from head to toe to be the way it is.

Batman is effectively sisyphus in that regard.

[-] azertyfun@sh.itjust.works 3 points 5 hours ago

That's worse. You see how that's worse, right?

The entire premise of this accursed property is "structural change is definitionally impossible and evil-natured people cannot be helped so let's see how Batman brutally maims victims of this system to defeat the villain-of-the-day". This is such a profoundly repulsive ideology to me. It's not about the in-universe justifications, it's about the horrible, awful, despicable themes of the stories that glorify hyper-individualism and completely discredit democracy, civic institutions, and community.

The in-universe explanations were just tacked on to those core reactionary ideals. The writers didn't stumble on a cursed city, they invented a cursed city to justify their need for vigilantism and violence to be the only rational answers to society's ills.

[-] jaybone@lemmy.zip 46 points 12 hours ago
[-] Velypso@sh.itjust.works 20 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

Lmao, im gonna leave it.

Gothman is a meme in my friend group. He is effectively sad batman, a regular goth guy, and a visigoth all at the same time or which he ever needs to be at the time.

He may not be the meme we deserve, but he is the one that we need to burn Rome.

[-] swab148@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 7 hours ago

Now we need a Gothman comic!

[-] person___man@lemmy.world 24 points 11 hours ago

Not only that, most fully realized versions of the character channel both the vigilante AND playboy personas to fight crime, using Wayne Enterprises to create welfare programs and jobs so Gothamites need not resort to crime to put food on the table.

There’s a scene where Batman pacifies a room of Black Mask goons without lifting a FINGER - he hacks the projector screen simply shows them a Wayne Foundation advertisement for better, safer jobs. One by one, every man simply drops their weapons and walks out the door as their crime boss irately yells at them to come back.

[-] ameancow@lemmy.world 7 points 9 hours ago

Gothman is literally cursed from head to toe to be the way it is.

It's more like, this post is full of people describing why the only way the storyline can stay realistic is by introducing supernatural evil.

If it were not a cursed city and if Batman was really a hero who wanted to help people, he would do the social programs and investment in community, but that would be a pretty lousy monthly comic book for kids to read and buy batman merchandise.

[-] nul9o9@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 8 hours ago

He already does all that on top of being batman.

[-] FartMaster69@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 9 hours ago

He does do those though?

[-] uriel238 2 points 7 hours ago

There are better places for superheroes. As I note above, there's a lot of elite deviance / white collar crime that Batman's amazing detective powers could easily be turned on. Heck, the US has been occupied and is controlled by a dangerous religious cult with a rogues gallery of masterminds vying for power, and they're behaving conspicuously like comic-book villains.

On the street level, a mega-corporation fighting a labor organization for control over the workforce would be a great venue for vigilantes with extraordinary powers. Eventually they'd higher a PMC task force (possibly with a cadre of G. I. Joe like specialists) as the Guy of Gisbourne to our protagonists' Merry Men.

There are a lot of directions that can be taken that pit vigilante justice-seekers against sociopolitical bullies with wealth and power. DC needs to just do a bit of brainstorming, but no they'd rather Batman fight the Joker for One More Time. 🥱

[-] uriel238 2 points 7 hours ago

Supernatural evil is not realistic. And when we encounter unearthly natural evils (which we do!), they tend to have solutions that are not a flying vigilante putting out street-crime level fires.

Deep geological repositories for storing vitrified nuclear waste, for instance. We have those.

[-] Stern@lemmy.world 15 points 9 hours ago

Here is a short list of shit going on in Gotham at any given time, not including the wide array of psychopaths and supervillains doing shit at any given time:

  1. The insane asylum with the portal to hell (Depending on if you consider Living Hell canon or not.)
  2. The Lazarus pit in the city spewing chemicals into the water supply.
  3. All the other chemicals likely in the water supply from a wide array of sources, including regular pollution and goofy shit.
  4. The remnants of the evil warlock who was sealed under the city for centuries.
  5. The massive mafia presence and general corruption.
  6. The Illuminati that uses zombie soldiers.

That is not shit proper taxation is going to resolve. You can't protected bike lane away the zombie controlling Illuminati.

[-] WolfLink@sh.itjust.works 10 points 9 hours ago
  1. The Lazarus pit in the city spewing chemicals into the water supply.
  2. All the other chemicals likely in the water supply from a wide array of sources, including regular pollution and goofy shit.

Fixing contaminants to the water supply is absolutely something proper taxes should be able to solve.

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[-] uriel238 3 points 7 hours ago

In that case, Dr. Strange or whoever should be sealing the hell-mouths. Batman face-punching the victims of all these effects is not helping.

I grew up during the smog-alert era of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, exerting myself, walking home uphill from school (yes, the had to walk in snow from school story except in my case, it was smog and it was true). No number of batmen or tough-on-crime judges were going to fix that, and heck even the limited smog regulations on cars we have today do enough. (Though switching to unleaded gasoline certainly helped generations after mine by lessening the damage). Only public transit and tighter regs on cars is going to help that.

Don't justify Batman's fists by saying there are extenuating pollution circumstances. The rogues gallery are the results of what comes down to poor urban planning and a superfluous layer of white-collar crime. If Batman was going after Pfizer and the Sacklers or Du Pont Chemical and PFOA manufacturers or all the private equity firms, then he'd be a hero. Otherwise, he's a crazy rich dude who beats up on poor people and has writers who won't think the problem through.

I think the US has just outgrown the Batman fantasy. I'd hope so, at least.

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[-] SARGE@startrek.website 109 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

Men will LITERALLY construct an entire persona based around their phobias as a result of trauma over witnessing the murder of their parents during a mugging orchestrated by crime bosses and spend millions of dollars on toys and gadgets to act out revenge fantasies and calling it vigilante justice rather than go to therapy.

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[-] 9point6@lemmy.world 28 points 12 hours ago

Tax wealth not work

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this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2025
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