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Macron criticises ‘unbridled violence’ after days of unrest and 2,000 arrests across France
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2026
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They bring very little in compared to their wealth, and comparatively very little tax wise, but lets not pretend like they bring little to the economy itself.
They do spend money where they are. They dine in fine restaurants, they hire private chefs, they have staff for their houses, they buy fancy cars etc. They probably employ thousands of people in various personal support roles (I'm not talking jobs like they run a business and have 10,000 employees, but the cleaning people, the personal assistants, the chauffeurs etc. Things they would have wherever they are even without a business.)
There are entire industries that even cater to them, like if they purchase a mega yacht and france has that industry.
The do something for the local economy, they just pay little taxes besides any local consumption taxes, but taxes is not the entire economy.
Edits to better express what i was trying to say.
Suppose that is all true. At every juncture I would reject the notion that they are creating an opportunity or job that would not otherwise exist (nor, on the whole, paying those workers any better).
There are more than enough restaurants, gardens, houses, private hire vehicles, shipbuilders etc to support those chefs, gardeners, cleaners, drivers and shipwrights without ever having to do with anybody with any wealth.
More expensive items, such as fancy cars, do not create the same number of jobs commensurate with the price increase, they generally make less of them, and increased profit margins go to the benefit of investors, not workers.
I’m not an economist or AI BS user, so there are probably words for these phenomena that idk sry
Staff wise you're probably right that they don't get paid much more than the middle/high wages of that area. Like if a personal chef is typically $80k, maybe this one get $100-120k kinda thing, but I doubt it'd suddenly become $200k if we used these as example numbers.
But the businesses like the restaurants that cater to the HNW individuals will bring in more profits as they can charge stupid amounts for the meals. Their staff probably get tipped better, at least if it's a tipping country, which then ends up in the economy even at the lower staff levels.
For things like the cars, like you said that probably employees less people job wise and the wealth concenrates into the owner of the fancy car shop and a small amount of sales staff, but they also will be able to spend their higher earnings at more expensive places too.
I'm not saying things would just collapse from all of this kind of spending going away, I'm just saying it's not nothing and it does have an impact.
just as a note, the kind of people to buy mega yachts is mostly those who have maybe €10M laying around because they got lucky sometimes. the truly rich who have billions, barely spend anything, they often live extremely frugal. so they're not spending and contributing to the economy that way.
The truly rich who have billions definitely still spend money in their economy in other ways I described (fleshed out more in edits as well) but yes they might not all buy the ultra expensive things like mega yachts specifically. They aren't just sitting at home in a condo alone though.
The hire fancy decorators to decorate it, they buy fancy couches, they most definitely don't clean it themselves and probably rarely cook for themselves etc.
We can take everyones most hated billionare of the moment Musk - He's spent hundreds of millions on election stuff alone. I doubt others spend that much, but they will spend millions on things like that. That money does end up in the pockets of things like radio stations, television stations, people going door to door, helps keep people in those areas employed etc. Not for a great cause in this case, and he of course likely paid 0 taxes on it since it's borrowed money, but its still money being spent that circulates in the economy.
that’s just trickle down but shittier
just tax them, if they leave, take their shit in country and ban their buisness working there
if you want to participate in the benefits pay your fucking share of the cost
I'm not saying don't tax them. I'm saying the person who said they provide very little to the economy is wrong, because the economy is more than taxes.
liter trickle down economics, we have years of study on this
they get more in subsidies and cost more in externalities than they bring in
tax them heavy or eat them
Notice how my post wasn't about their actual businesses, but just if they were living their own personal lives?
ok and?
i’m talking about the individual as a whole
they distort markets in their personal lives too
this shit isn't positive, go look at what Elon is doing outside his business as we speak, so like i said, externalities
Is Elon spending $150 million to support Paxton good? Absolutely not. But to say $150 million will have no impact in the Texas economy is also just putting on blinders, even if it is for a bad cause.
that makes it worse, that isnt some positive lmao
Money spent on a bad cause is bad ya, but it's still money in the economy. My initial reply was around OP's comment of "wealthy people actually bring very little into an economy,"
ok but money spent in bad ways does not benefit the economy as a whole, often it doesn't even interact with the majority of the economy
op isnt wrong
again this is pretty standard trickle down economics and not new, there are decades of studies on this
it generaly gets lumped as an externality cost and market warping and not a benefit
Trickle down as a reason to lower taxes doesnt work.
It doesn't mean that things still dont go down.
This isnt about should we or should we not tax them. Yes we should tax them.
no i'm saying money isnt some magical positive in the economic sheet, not all expenditure is the same
money spent can actually hurt economies
ie lobbying for tariffs is the classic example
That's fair, but 'can' doesn't always mean it will, and I imagine most of these cases come down to politics?
What if Paxton loses? Also are you saying that everyone with lets say > $100 million is personally spending more money that will harm the economy rather than just regular spending which helps it?
Not taxing them in hopes they will spend more is wrong, but the do spend.
And not everyone is as bad as Musk when it comes to this and there are counterparts to him supporting the other side in similar (but maybe not as much) ways.
again decades of study on this topic
not new, outliers im sure exist but as a rule bad
rather we just eat them to be sure
Decades on trickle down economics as a reason to keep taxes low yes.
Decades of studies on how much people spend in general with no relation or links to their taxes?
im confused on the separation here
im talking about trickledown as again part of the individual billionaire but its just one way they distort markets
in case you were reading and already replying to what I wrote, i made a meaningful edit with net negative/very little. My bad on that one. Sorry if I put you down the wrong path on a reply!
Correct me if I'm wrong here, and excuse my completely made up numbers, this is just an example and they have no bearing on what actual values might look like.
You're saying that not taxing the ultra rich means were losing out on a hypothetical $100 billion dollars a year. That $100 billion we lose out on, doesn't make up for the $10 billion they spend, and it never catches up. If we taxed them more, we'd always come out ahead.
And you're right, and thats why we should raise taxes and close loop holes. Trickle down does not work.
Further, of that $10 billion they spend, you're saying its ~~a net negative~~ adds very little to the economy.
I'm just not convinced thats the case, and if there are (edit decades of) studies out there that say this is the case that have no relation to how we should tax them more because that would be better, I'd be curious to see it.
If they just all hypothetically vanished, and the world moved on without them and that spending stopped, the economy would notice it. Again, it wouldn't be this catastrophic thing, but it would be noticed.
Edit: Actually to be fair, net negative isn't right and wasn't either of our arguments, "very little" is more appropriate. My bad on that one.