Upvote this if you were at least 95% confident the markets would crash if Donald Trump became the POTUS.
Please don't do this here.
World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year
161–170 of 284 posts
Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year
#162Earlier 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?
When you earn trillions in isn't through the sweat off your own back. Its other people earning it for you.
Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is true for worldwide poverty. This is not true for US poverty.
In the US "poverty" now includes access to netflix. Poverty has absolutely gotten better in the US over the years.
US poverty isn't some controversial idea to be scare-quoted and dismissed as no big deal. 1 in 6 of our kids don't have enough to eat. Sheesh.
Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with much of what you said, yet I just don't see it as all that bad of a situation. I still think there is a lot of upward mobility even in that scenario -- the smarter people I know earn good salaries and have nice lifestyles. Nicer than their parents, in most cases, mainly because consumer technology constantly gets better and cheaper. And there is still opportunity for risk takers to start their own compan…
My parents had paid off their mortgage when they were my age. My father was self employed and my mother a housewife. I’m on a reasonably good salary but banks won’t loan us enough to buy an averaged sized family home even though we have a reasonable deposit. My partner would have to be on an equally sized salary but her teaching job pays very little. Sure we have some nicer gadgets and personal comforts but the cost…
The problem isn't necessarily capitalism, but market failure in housing. Economic laws dictate that anyone who wants to purchase a house should be able find one that they can afford (assuming good credit history, etc), instead through zoning and other measures regions like the Bay Area and others choose not to build.
Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year
#165As capitalism matures, it's clear to anyone with a thread of financial literacy that most wealth is created through capital gains rather than salary. We're approaching a state (at least in developed countries) where productivity is so high, that you can literally park your money in 500 of the biggest businesses and you're almost guaranteed a 7% annual return (if you hold stocks for the long term). Using the commonly…
Middle class people can take advantage of those investment returns as well. A more interesting question to me is “Why aren’t they?”. A typical middle class person can still achieve significant upward mobility for their children, and yet they often choose not to. Is part of the problem with student debt not just that many parents of the last generation or two wasted their money rather than saving it to put their child…
> Middle class people can take advantage of those investment returns as well.
By definition of the classes in a capitalist society, those who can fully take advantage of investment (capital) returns are the capitalist class. The petit bourgeoisie, or middle class, makes some return from capital, but that's limited (in the traditional definition, they are the ones who apply their own labor to their capital, though those dependent on selling wage labor who also have separate capital holdings that are inadequate without labor income for personal support are similarly situated.)
But the usual American definition of “middle class” isn't the Petit bourgeoisie, but some group around middle income, which is almost entirely composed of what are essentially pure wage-laborers without meaningful capital stocks who cannot take advantage, in any significant way, of investment returns.
Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year
#166That's how it is when the Federal Reserve creates an asset bubble to deal with an asset bubble collapse.
This is NOT something a capitalist country should be doing. It's not the job of government to make your investments work out. It's YOURS.
Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with much of what you said, yet I just don't see it as all that bad of a situation. I still think there is a lot of upward mobility even in that scenario -- the smarter people I know earn good salaries and have nice lifestyles. Nicer than their parents, in most cases, mainly because consumer technology constantly gets better and cheaper. And there is still opportunity for risk takers to start their own compan…
The question is, how much of the status quo your describe is because we're not in a self contained system, and actually outsource a lot of the problems to developing countries? If the system you describe was constrained to just the United States, and no goods or capital could enter or leave, would we expect a similar system? Because scaled up, that's the world in X decades. Unless we decide, and rely on, various insu…
> Unless we decide, and rely on, various insurrections, rebellions and regime changes to change the system in some countries such that there's always a third world economy to take advantage of.
> (Unless we specifically cause it to be so through political maneuvering and war, but I like to think that's crackpot territory...).
When you look at the history of the world and consider current geopolitical situation, what leads you to believe that's crackpot territory?
Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year
#168As capitalism matures, it's clear to anyone with a thread of financial literacy that most wealth is created through capital gains rather than salary. We're approaching a state (at least in developed countries) where productivity is so high, that you can literally park your money in 500 of the biggest businesses and you're almost guaranteed a 7% annual return (if you hold stocks for the long term). Using the commonly…
How does someone having wealth stop anyone else from acquiring theirs? You may start out with less but there's nothing stopping you. Also all those capital investments are helping the companies and funds they're invested in, one of which could be your very own employer/startup/pension fund, etc.
Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year
#169In other words, the 500 wealthiest people added a trillion dollars of value to the economy this year. Edit: you all that are down-voting need to learn how the economy works.
The creation of wealth, in various forms, is what adds "value" to the economy; rich people ending up owning/controlling that wealth isn't the same thing as those rich people having created that wealth.
Edit: Don't passive-aggressively revel in victimhood. If you feel misunderstood, explain better - don't blame your audience.
Re: World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1T this year
#170As capitalism matures, it's clear to anyone with a thread of financial literacy that most wealth is created through capital gains rather than salary. We're approaching a state (at least in developed countries) where productivity is so high, that you can literally park your money in 500 of the biggest businesses and you're almost guaranteed a 7% annual return (if you hold stocks for the long term). Using the commonly…
I agree with much of what you said, yet I just don't see it as all that bad of a situation. I still think there is a lot of upward mobility even in that scenario -- the smarter people I know earn good salaries and have nice lifestyles. Nicer than their parents, in most cases, mainly because consumer technology constantly gets better and cheaper. And there is still opportunity for risk takers to start their own compan…
out of control wealth inequality precedes economic collapse.
Pollution is the clear example, I think. The more money I have, the more money I can make by polluting. If I capture below a certain threshold of the benefits of pollution, then the personal cost to me of pollution outweighs any benefit I might receive, and I'm disincentivized from polluting. The more wealth inequality there is, the more frequently scenarios in which pollution is profitable to me occur. Compounding this problem, pollution increases wealth inequality on its own. It creates health burdens and lowers output. It's expensive for society. So I end up profiting while everyone else takes a loss, thereby increasing wealth inequality.
Democratic government helps a great deal with this problem (although simple majority is insufficient to offset it entirely, even with ideal information), but democratic governments themselves become polluted by exactly the same decision making processes.