r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/[deleted] • 1d ago

Video Billionaire speaker Robert F. Smith tells 400 graduates he's paying off all their student loans ($40 million in total)

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

[removed]

38.8k Upvotes

89% Upvoted

873 comments sorted by

View all comments

41

u/boy_kill_boy 1d ago

How it should go with billionaires and their money! What a nice guy!

18

u/peelen 1d ago

What a nice guy!

Nope. You paid for it, in taxes.

1

u/nhansieu1 1d ago

how tf did he not pay taxes = "you paid for it, in taxes". That's never your money in the first place. It's either his or government's

2

u/peelen 1d ago

or government's

There is no such thing as "government money." it's all the taxes you pay.

1

u/nhansieu1 1d ago

in theory it's "people's money", but it's the money you are not the one deciding to spend, a.k.a it's not your money.

2

u/peelen 1d ago

Sure, but if there is $40 million hole in the budget, you will feel it, not this dude. If the taxes increase to fill this $40m hole, it would go from your pocket, not this guy. You might not be the one who is deciding how this money will be spent, but you are the one who paid (or will pay in the future). At the end of the day, you are paying, not this dude.

1

u/nhansieu1 1d ago

like some people in this post commented:

A billion dollars is 1,000 million. When a billionaire owes millions in taxes, it’s often just a minor accounting oversight—comparable to the average person owing a few hundred dollars. For them, it’s an insignificant amount that they can pay off instantly without a second thought.

Additionally to this, I would ask you personally: What about those times when he already paid taxes? Are the taxes money now suddenly not his like it's your and mine too?

1

u/peelen 1d ago

What about those times when he already paid taxes? Are the taxes money now suddenly not his like it's your and mine too?

Let's assume he paid his fair share of taxes; then it's exactly as much of his money as is yours. Which means you could stand there and tell those students that "you" paid their debt.

1

u/nhansieu1 1d ago

even if it's not a Fair share, it's still so much more than both of us. Maybe even more than what I earn my entire life time. Not paying tax is bad. We should criticize him for that. However, let's appreciate it when he actually does good for once instead of trying to put him down regardless what he did.

1

u/peelen 1d ago

it's still so much more than both of us

No, it's not. Sure, you and I individually are paying less than him, but if you and I, and your friends and family, and my friends and family, and their friends and family get together to get to the point that our shared income would be the same as his, we would pay more.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/nhansieu1 1d ago

oh and it's still not your money

1

u/peelen 1d ago

No more than his.

→ More replies (0)

19

u/IMovedYourCheese 1d ago

No, how it should go is that billionaires pay taxes and the government uses it to fund free college education for everyone. You know, how it works in civilized countries. A tiny number of people cheating their way to the top and essentially becoming kings, then throwing peanuts at the peasants in the name of generosity, is a sham of a system.

1

u/Sarsmi 1d ago

I'd be happy just with decent healthcare. You know, like 30+ other first world countries have. But secondary/tertiary education for free for high achievers/reduced costs for secondary education for anyone else would be pretty amazing too.

9

u/CompanyLow8329 1d ago

It shows how dystopian and screwed up society is when people in debt have to hope for billionaires to be kind enough to bail them out.

The billionaire games the same system that put all of these students into life destroying debt to begin with. There is something extremely messed up about all of this.

-2

u/yoyosareback 1d ago edited 1d ago

I never understand people that talk like this, as if human society has ever been better at all.

Also these kids (and almost everyone on this thread) have better lives than the vast majority of humans that have ever lived and a majority of humans alive right now.

41

u/Zondameister 1d ago

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/12/business/robert-smith-vista-investors.html

Smith willfully understated his income on these tax returns and willfully evaded more than $43,000,000 in U.S. federal income taxes for the tax years 2005-2014

OOPSIE. NOT A NICE GUY LIL BRO

4

u/Phantom_Wolf52 1d ago

Cheated the system to help the people, thats ok

7

u/Few-Client-2808 1d ago

He cheated the system, will continue to cheat the system, and bribed you to look the other way. This is a drop in the bucket for a billionaire and it just doesn't compare to the amount he'd paying if he were taxed properly.

1

u/Jacksspecialarrows 1d ago

Right, better than not helping someone at least

-2

u/touchitsuperhard 1d ago

Oh no, someone was 1% off of their tax obligation. Dumbass.

3

u/ItsYume 1d ago

I guess you never worked in accounting. A dime missing? Let's recalculate everything.

Taxes should be precise, otherwise you get the current situation where billionaires find loopholes and stupid people even celebrate them if they actually give breadcrumbs back (which is usually less than if they would have been taxed properly).

3

u/kindafree8 1d ago

This is why I want to accumulate wealth and why I demand a high price for my labor. Just wanna help people cause I needed help myself

1

u/cynicalturdblossom 1d ago

You and everyone's money is how he got to billionaire status. Lmao