Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 284 posts

Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

#71

Post by balthasar »

charlesdm wrote: post #60
staticassertion wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It matters to me personally that a small group of people have such a massive amount of power. It's already completely uneven regarding voting power - I can vote once in an election, but if I had a trillion dollars I could vote once, and then I could pay lobbyists, and fund advertisements, etc. I, as a single person or small group, with a trillion dollars, can have a massive influence. This is regardless of how poor a…

Didn't Trump get elected with 1/7th the budget of Hillary Clinton?

Looks to be half. https://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/09/trump-spent-about-half-of-wh...

Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

#72

Post by aalleavitch »

notyourwork wrote: post #59
coliveira wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is simple to understand: as population grows and technology grows even faster, there should be a steady stream of wealth increase. This has been observed as is obvious to everyone. However, if we allow the bulk of this wealth to be controlled by a tiny part of the population, we are creating a huge problem to current and to future generations. A hereditary oligarchy can be terrible to our civilization, and…

Not to say I disagree because I do think the wealthiest should contribute meaningfully to society. But when you say "without visible contributions to society." why should an extremely wealthy person have to contribute to society?

Why should anyone have to contribute to society? Because they benefit from it.

Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

#73

Post by sintaxi »

aerophilic wrote: post #54

There was an interesting study posted (I believe here) on how a flat 10% re-distribution (10% taxed from everyone, then redistributed evenly across everyone, aka basic income), created a more stable "society" in simulation. It did this by helping support a larger "middle class". Does anyone know the link/can point me to the study? Google is failing me at the moment...

With UBI everyone will have more money but overall production would drop which is the only meaningful way to improve peoples lives. So people would be worse off because prices would adjust to the decreased supply and the increased demand of goods and services.

Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

#74

Post by ccallebs »

staticassertion wrote: post #67
crusso wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Katy Perry has a massive amount of political power compared to you as well. How should we handle her and other celebrities? How about unions and union bosses? News media heads? If we're going to be fair, shouldn't we control anyone at all who has influence?

What is this argument even?

Some people are more influential than others. Money is only one vector of influence. He's rhetorically asking whether we should regulate the other vectors with hope that no one person has more influence than anyone else.

Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

#75

Post by Fej »

> advisers to the super-rich are warning them of a “strike back” from the squeezed majority

That's an understatement. When revolutions come, the rich are always the first at the guillotine.

Of course, that's rather unlikely, but these people have so much money that they can afford to make that consideration.

Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

#76

Post by pmahoney »

charlesdm wrote: post #60
staticassertion wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It matters to me personally that a small group of people have such a massive amount of power. It's already completely uneven regarding voting power - I can vote once in an election, but if I had a trillion dollars I could vote once, and then I could pay lobbyists, and fund advertisements, etc. I, as a single person or small group, with a trillion dollars, can have a massive influence. This is regardless of how poor a…

Didn't Trump get elected with 1/7th the budget of Hillary Clinton?

The situation is more complex than candidates' election spending. For example, many of the groups in [1] influence various radio and television programs, and through those, elections.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_activities_of_the_Ko...

Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

#77

Post by sintaxi »

staticassertion wrote: post #53
tw1010 wrote: post #51

So what? Inequality should only matter to you personally if it means the lower bound on income, the poorest of the poor, is going down. If the richest is getting richer, maybe that means the poorest are becoming poorer as a consequence, but not necessarily, in fact, most likely not.

It matters to me personally that a small group of people have such a massive amount of power. It's already completely uneven regarding voting power - I can vote once in an election, but if I had a trillion dollars I could vote once, and then I could pay lobbyists, and fund advertisements, etc. I, as a single person or small group, with a trillion dollars, can have a massive influence. This is regardless of how poor a…

Then create a better company then those people and give away your wealth.

Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

#78

Post by dbingham »

tw1010 wrote: post #51

So what? Inequality should only matter to you personally if it means the lower bound on income, the poorest of the poor, is going down. If the richest is getting richer, maybe that means the poorest are becoming poorer as a consequence, but not necessarily, in fact, most likely not.

Because with large amounts of money comes enormous power -- especially in a mostly unregulated free market system. Power to influence the political conversation through media. Power to directly influence law makers through lobbyists and donations. Power to buy your way out of punishment ($100 speeding ticket or parking ticket is nothing to someone with millions or billions of dollars. It provides zero disincentive.)

When inequality gets high enough and power concentrated enough, Democracy decays towards oligarchy, social mobility grinds to a halt, what was a free and relatively classless system becomes an ossified aristocracy and freedom slowly devolves to a dystopian tyranny.

We're already seeing the beginning of this process in American society. Already, we have substantial evidence supporting the idea that Democracy has decayed into Oligarchy -- and it did so several decades ago. [1]

This matters if you value a free and just society. It matters a lot.

[1] https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/fi...

Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

#79

Post by coliveira »

notyourwork wrote: post #59
coliveira wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is simple to understand: as population grows and technology grows even faster, there should be a steady stream of wealth increase. This has been observed as is obvious to everyone. However, if we allow the bulk of this wealth to be controlled by a tiny part of the population, we are creating a huge problem to current and to future generations. A hereditary oligarchy can be terrible to our civilization, and…

Not to say I disagree because I do think the wealthiest should contribute meaningfully to society. But when you say "without visible contributions to society." why should an extremely wealthy person have to contribute to society?

People who do not contribute to society are what we call parasites. Just because your father or grand-grand-father did something useful to the world doesn't justify that you have to live like a king. Modern society destroyed the old feudal order exactly to avoid this kind of social injustice.

Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year

#80

Post by aalleavitch »

ptaipale wrote: post #38
eximius wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While a technically valid criticism, is it really that controversial? Costs are increasing faster than wages at low income levels - which is easy when wages are largely stagnant or declining due to increased competition driven by labor surplus and automation.

It's not even controversial, it's wrong. Poverty, particularly extreme poverty, has been decreasing rapidly over the past 25 years. Of course, this doesn't mean that everyone is better; there are always winners and some losers, and there are setbacks here and there, but the big picture is one of great progress. For more, one should read the Human Development Reports: http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/2016_human…

This is true for worldwide poverty. This is not true for US poverty.
Post reply on HN