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The leading French economist Gabriel Zucman is urging European governments to inflict financial pain on American billionaires in response to US President Donald Trump’s effort to seize control of Greenland, a mineral-rich island that some of Trump’s rich campaign donors see as a potentially massive profit opportunity.

“Access to the European market—by billionaires and the companies they own—should be made conditional on paying a wealth tax: in effect, a tariff for oligarchs. If Elon Musk, for example, wants to keep selling Teslas in Europe, he should have to pay it. If he refuses, Tesla would lose access to the European market.”

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[-] comrade_twisty@feddit.org 118 points 1 month ago

Tax Amazon, 50%

Tax Google, 50%

Tax Microsoft, 50%

Tax Apple, 50%

Tax Meta, 50%

Ban X, 100%

[-] Nebraska_Huskers@lemmy.world 39 points 1 month ago
[-] Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 month ago

Seriously, at least the others, while evil, produce something of value for us.

Sorry, I'm being very disrespectful to the fan of the metaverse.

[-] microcapybara@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 month ago

Sorry, I'm being very disrespectful to the fan of the metaverse

It’s ok. Zuckerberg can just shut off his emotion chip.

[-] phutatorius@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 month ago

Seriously, at least the others, while evil, produce something of value for us.

Nothing that cannot be replaced. If they all disappeared off the face of the earth, we'd be no worse off.

[-] Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 month ago

Yeah, but you can do better.

[-] random_character_a@lemmy.world 62 points 1 month ago

And I only have one upvote 😒

[-] Palerider@feddit.uk 12 points 1 month ago
[-] random_character_a@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago
[-] West_of_West@piefed.social 56 points 1 month ago

Treat the American oligarchy like the robber barons they are

[-] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 44 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

This would make Trump panic in the best way, it would directly undermine his aesthetic of Rich Asshole Who Other Rich Assholes Like.

[-] Whostosay@sh.itjust.works 35 points 1 month ago

This would be the largest W of the century, but I'm going to go ahead and manage my expectations

[-] r0ertel@lemmy.world 31 points 1 month ago

It's a super long read, but filled with nuggets that explain exactly how to hit the rich by taking away their money. The TL;DR is to repeal the country's anti-circumvention law then route the subscription money locally.

The Post-American Internet (permalink)

there's a third possible response to tariffs, one that's just sitting there, begging to be tried: what about repealing anticircumvention law?

It's hard to convey how much money is on the table here. Take just one example: Apple's App Store. Apple forces all app vendors into using its payment processor, and charges them a 30 percent commission on every euro spent inside of an app.. .. Apple makes $100 billion per year on it. If the EU repeals Article 6 of the Copyright Directive, some smart geeks in Finland could reverse-engineer Apple's bootloaders and make a hardware dongle that jailbreaks phones so that they can use alternative app stores, and sell the dongle – along with the infrastructure to operate an app store – to anyone in the world who wants to go into business competing with Apple for users and app vendors.

Those competitors could offer a 90% discount to every crafter on Etsy, every performer on Patreon, every online news outlet, every game dev, every media store. Offer them a 90% discount on payments, and still make $10b/year.

[-] Mortoc@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

I'm a game dev and I'd love to see nothing more than Apple getting slapped down for what they've done to mobile gaming, but this won't work.

Setting aside how hard bootstrapping a two-sided marketplace is, those of us that currently depend on Apple store placement and goodwill can't risk pissing Apple off.

[-] r0ertel@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

In the case of Apple, you'd host your stuff on whatever app store is the most popular in any given country. It's sort of like F-Droid but for the normies.

What's really interesting is the thought of jailbreaking your own tractor, opening the possibility to local aftermarket parts. Again, this would take the money from John Deere and open up a local market.

I am consistently disappointed when I hear politicians' only recourse to anything is taxes. Remember how they were going to tax email to fix the spam problem?

[-] thefluffiest@feddit.nl 28 points 1 month ago

In addition, kick out McDonalds, Burger King and Subway. Better for general health too.

[-] phutatorius@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 month ago

Make multinationals pay tax on their earnings within the country, and without transfer-payment chicanery. Squeeze them until the pips squeak. They're competing unfairly with locally-based businesses who actually pay their taxes.

[-] WhirlpoolBrewer@lemmy.world 20 points 1 month ago

I'm pretty sure Ireland is where all the major companies are "headquartered" and technically keep all their money there for tax reasons. Ireland could just freeze the bank accounts of Apple, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Intel, ... Or do something similar if they so choose as retaliation. Would be devastating financially afterwards, but would get the US's full attention

[-] ygurin@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

Yeah, I don't think that is going to happen. We are talking about Ireland... Right?

[-] UnspecificGravity@piefed.social 19 points 1 month ago

We already know how to do this, its literally the first thing we did when we sanctioned Russia for Ukraine. Target the business interests of the people actually making the decisions.

[-] InFerNo@lemmy.ml 18 points 1 month ago

Block billionaire's services and nourish European alternatives.

[-] fizzle@quokk.au 17 points 1 month ago

Yep.

If Europe announced a 100% tariff on Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and OpenAI, Trump would be gone in a week.

[-] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 15 points 1 month ago

Make all the IP of those billionaires unprotected in the EU. Maybe also get China on-board.

[-] nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 1 month ago

This was always the answer they were just too afraid of their own rich people until a land invasion seemed imminent.

[-] No1@aussie.zone 13 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

You could enact or enforce laws that forbid a felon, or associates of a felon, entry to your country.

Who would want criminals, or associates of criminals entering your country?

You might name such an organisation Immigration Criminal Exclusion, or ICE for short

[-] darkmogool@feddit.org 11 points 1 month ago

and why the fuck not all billionairs?

[-] childOfMagenta@jlai.lu 1 points 1 month ago

He's trying, in France. I'll let you guess the reception the "taxe Zucman" gets in the (billionaires owned) medias.

[-] Balldowern@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago

No Tariffs. tariffs can be passed on to the poor, who have no part in this invasion. Start sanctioning the Billionaires & seize their assets instead.

[-] this@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 month ago

Repealing anti circumvention law might be a good place to start.

[-] AlexLost@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

Finally some fucking sense. Doing nothing and being mad has gotten no one anywhere. Hit them where it fucking hurts, bottom line be damned. Governments are not businesses.

[-] Asafum@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

Europe: sorry, best we can do is specific carveouts for US billionaire owned companies in our tax code....

[-] Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 month ago

I know some rich assholes here in the states... Put a 1000% tarrif on everyone visiting from the US. Nobody working class can afford it right now anyway.

[-] tehn00bi@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

The EU needs to divest its self of US technology. It’s clear we have gone down the drain and will no longer be considered a competent ally.

[-] Formfiller@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

The digital ID is a Larry Ellison project through oracle so it seems like the politicians really want to shove American facist billionaires into your government

[-] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

you can do that by siezing thier properties and thier bank accounts(including thier investments).

[-] tehn00bi@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

I mean, most of their cash is sitting in Ireland.

this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2026
726 points (100.0% liked)

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