Which one? The one on his shoulders or the one between his legs?

Pretty sure I remember hearing in a YouTube vid about Amazon that it hasn't actually made money until recently, which is why they haven't been paying taxes. I personally don't know how you legitimately say that a businessman is rich if they don't fully own their own business and are out of debt. Living off of other people's money is welfare.

Below, I'm not taking into account the fewer rich and elite who've been handed down massive amounts of money, or lucky people who win's lotteries, etc. However, even if these wealthy people aren't doing much with the wealth, odds are part of their parents goal was to pass it down to them, which is part of the reason why they worked to acquire it in the first place, so.

As for the capitalism vs socialism talk about money, there's no solid answer. If you take or cap some of the rich's money, that only lasts for a while before it becomes normalized, and then it will be time to take even more. No different than how it's never enough for some of those businessman. Once they have a lot, it's ok for a while, but then they want even more.

The reason why you don't want to interfere too much with the rich is because you can very well screw yourself over with socialism. If you take too much from a businessman, some will pack up their business and leave, taking it to another country who will allow them to continue as they were for the most part. Just look at what China is doing specifically for Tesla right now. Many countries would kill to have some former American businesses headquartered there.

If those big businesses leave, there goes those taxes, and even worse, those businesses now have great products that are likely much cheaper now, so your countries people still buy them, sending their money out of the country even more so. While some of the medium size businesses will grow and make up for some of the losses, many will not since there won't be the drive to do so. Why try and grow, if most of that profit is taken away and given to everyone else? Why try and grow if you can never stand a chance of catching the companies that left?

It's also known that in companies, a small amount of the most efficient employee's, do a lot more than their far share of the work, and it isn't linear as a company grows. The bigger the company is, the smaller the percentage of people doing more than their fair share. There's a name for this but I forget it.

For many of the businesses and best employees that stay, they slowly start to give up. Why physically work harder, think harder, have more patience and make better decisions, if you're not worth much more, if at all, than your coworkers? This leads to production and efficiency dropping considerably, so less money being made by those companies to be taxed.

There are also the employee's who spend their time just getting by at work, doing just enough to keep their job but nothing more. There's no doubt when the top employee's start slacking off due to more equal pay, those typical slackers, will try to slack even more and maintain the employee performance gap. They got away with it this entire time, why should anything change now?

One way or another it leads to everyone being more financially equal, but equally poor. The other way around with capitalism, over time, is for some to be poor, some to be lower middle class, some to be upper middle class, some to be rich, and some to be elite. The thing is that the poor in a capitalist system end up much better off then the poor in a socialist system, so it's hard to deny which is the more welcome outcome. Obviously nobody being poor would be great, but the world doesn't work like that unfortunately. Strong animals thrive, while they watch others starve. Life is complicated and tough.

Yeah, I think one of the main problems in society is inheritance, but I really don't see what can be done about it unfortunately. I don't have much of an issue with self-made wealthy people. They'll likely generate significant taxes and create jobs along the way, and in most cases are being rewarded for hard-work and talent. It's when these people can then transfer this reward to off-spring who have done absolutely nothing to deserve it that's the problem. It both punishes everyone else who haven't had this foot-up by having to compete with people who've had the hugest of head-starts, and I think also has a detrimental effect on the kids themselves as they haven't had to learn the value of money or know what it's like to live life without a safety net - which I think is fundamental in building character. Getting knocked around a bit by life I think also teaches you empathy as you can relate to other's misfortunes and pain.

I'm not saying there's no such thing as a nice trust-fund kid but they often seem to lack 'something', there's nothing behind the eyes...

It delivers unearned money & therefore power into the hands of people who aren't competent or responsible enough to wield it properly.

Trump is a great example - where do we think he'd honestly be without his silver spoon? I'm guessing some kind of used car salesman or 2-bit loan shark. And yet, because of inheritance (or the transference of wealth if that's a better fit) he's the gaddamn President! It just illustrates how much of a perversion of our system it creates. Society thrives in meritocracy - yet it feels like it revolves more and more around nepotism... Or maybe it's not getting worse, maybe it's always been like this, I dunno.

This problem is illustrated in the ever-growing wealth inequality in our society and I can't see that changing any time soon sadly...

Interesting talking points though Baalzamon!

EDIT - maybe I'm being harsh on Trump - I guess that if he'd had to start from zero, like most of the rest of us, he'd have turned out completely differently. If he didn't have a team of lawyers and the fruits of Daddy's money behind him he'd have had to engage with people on a genuine, human level. Rather than threatening to stiff, fire or sue people he'd maybe have developed a warm and endearing personality - and who knows, potentially still be President, just an altogether different kind...

That would be some climax!

Look at the so-called US President's signature. It looks like it says something like Munla Trundal. It's preposterous!

So it appears that the Fed Chair sent a broadside over to Trump concerning the "Unsustainable Government Debt".
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/11/13/interest-rates-powell-tells-congress-federal-debt-unsustainable/2582302001/

Since the Tax cuts and the national debt ballowing, we have heard nothing from Trump on the debt and his solution to it raising during his presidency, compared to when he was on the campaign trail telling us his great solution to solving it. After a bunch of rate cuts to keep us from a recession, it appears that the Fed is not willing make any more cuts and pretty much told the President to get the debt in line or risk the economy growth going below where it currently at.
I am not sure about anyone else, but I definitely do not have any confidence in Trump trying to tell the Fed head what to do based on his previous management of his own properties. I have this feeling that Trump is more than happy to continue to pour gasoline on the economy as long as it make him look good in the short term while nuking us in the future for his own benefit.

US debt will keep growing and growing regardless of who is in charge. Decreasing debt means cutting government spending, and no politician wants to do it because it means losing popularity/voters.

US is destined to have its debt doubled every 8-10 years until it eventually kills the country within.

Actually you are correct, I did not mean national debt I ment the Federal deficit.  With the deficit ballowing out of control and doesn't appear to be getting in check since Obama reduced it, this is where the impact on our economy will suffer the most.

Growing debt is not a problem as long as the economy grows faster than the debt.

Like, if the debt is growing, but as a percentage of the overall economy is shrinking, then it's fine.

I don't know if this is the case with the US though....

Debt has been increasing faster than the economy for quite some time. This is the reason the Debt/GDP ratio is growing rather than keeping the same value.